Spring Things

• Spring peepers.
• Lions teeth on the banks.
• Easter dinner.
• Crocuses.
• Daffodils.
• Rain.
• Kids dressed up in the obligatory Easter dresses or Easter suits.
• Mint starting to come up from the mud and last year's dead grass and twigs.
• Wind.
• Curled up ferns.
• Drain pipes.
• The love song of the Chickadee.
• Cinders on the asphalt.
• Mud.
• Robin red breasts.
• Puddles.
• Hanging out sheets on the clothesline on windy days.
• Early nightfall.
• The beginnings of skunk cabbage, poking up green in marshy spots.
• Return of the birds.
• Malted milk easter egg candies.
• Forsythia with snow on it.
• Spring cleaning.
• Big, splashy waterfalls with all the snow-melt.
• Road work.
• Light blue skies.
• Really wanting a tomato from your own garden.
• Cold.
• Seed packet displays at stores.
• Not wearing a jacket.
• Having a stuffy head.
• The first dandelion.
• Chicks and ducklings at feed stores, balls of fluff on sawdust and under heat lamps.
• Getting out the bikes and checking the tires.
• Hyacinths.
• Feeling suddenly closer to the ground because all the insulation that snow provided is gone.
• Buds on the apple trees.
• Buying sunflower seeds to plant when it gets just a tad warmer.
• Suddenly really wanting bright colors.
• Hiking and not being able to sit down because everything's muddy.
• Overflowing creek beds.
• College kids coming home for the summer.
• Picking up branches in the yard.
• Wondering if the lawn mower still works after sitting still all winter.
• Farmers complaining about there being too much rain to fix fence and let the cows out.
• Spring beauties (tiny, stripey flowers.)
• The first trip to the park with the kids.
• The first hot day.
• Dyeing Easter eggs with kids, making a multicolored mess of the kitchen.
• Cleaning out/vacuuming the car.
• The ice cream shop opening up for the season.
• Putting away the heavy blankets and feeling organized and then being cold & digging them out again.
• Finding a teaberry patch in the woods.
• Mother's Day.
• Ramps. Ramp dinners at the fire halls. Ramps and potatoes. Ramps and bacon. Ramps and cheese.
• Being able to see houses and things that you can't see in summer because of the leaves in the way.
• Opening stuck windows.
• Not starting up a fire in the woodstove because you don't really need it.
• Perfectionist people raking gravel and cinders out of their yards and back into the road.
• Counting down to the last day of school.
• Starting to think about a summer vacation.
• The first firefly.
• Gaither music.
• Burning sticks that fell off of trees during the snow, having a bonfire and s'mores.
• Mandarin orange cake.
• Putting out hummingbird feeders, cooking up hummingbird juice with sugar, water, & red coloring.
• Storing away the winter coats and digging out the hoodies and jackets and rain coats.
• Farmers perking up.
• Icicles dripping from the eaves as they melt.
• Letting winter calves out to pasture for the first time, watching them run and play.
• Shearing sheep, shearing alpacas.
• Customer appreciation days at greenhouses.
• Baby goats (there's not much in the world that's cuter.)
• When the ducks and the geese come back to the lake.
• "Here Comes The Sun," by The Beatles, played on repeat.
• Redbuds along the highway.
• Taking the cars through an undercarriage wash to get all the salt off and stop the rusting.
• Old time Easter hymns.
• St. Patrick's Day, which is also my sister's birthday.
• Cleaning up all the flower pots, getting rid of old leaves and sticks, getting ready to plant.
• Rainbows
• Thawing slush and ice.