Please forgive me for being quiet today, my friends. Allen has had time off and so we have been partaking of ye olde New England rite of SPRING–yard work. The past four days have been a blur of brush clearing, raking, branch pruning, fertilizing and tree cutting. I feel as though we have plowed the back forty with a mule and I have the calloused, blisters and farmer’s tan to prove it.

But, jaysus, does it feel good to be outside again. And to see that my tulips, daffodils, iris and lilies are finding their spots in the world is a joy. Soon, I will have real honest to goodness blooms and the trees are budding already. The owls have been hunting all night and the foxes (whose dens we found on the hill next door) have been whooping it up all night (how many kits will they have this year?). We had no spring to speak of last year and not much of a summer so this year we’re all going a little bit crazy, I think.

But the sun is shining and the snow is but a few patches.