Here’s a column I wrote almost exactly four years ago. Vive la difference....
Spring, 2012.
What’s happening outside is astounding. Capricious Mother Nature, weary of her black-and-white world, has reminded us that she can brighten the earth whenever she wants to. Fluffy pink apple blossoms, vivid blue hyacinths, yellow daffys, Stella Magnolia’s flowers and my roses’ countless pink, yellow and red buds prove it. Trees are fuzzy with the clean green that only baby leaves can boast. And it’s just March 15!
The overheated air is thick with promise – and work. Exhausted, I sigh, almost missing the snow, and the time I had to relax. Nature’s abandoned her usual slow, coy seasonal seduction and has plunked down an instant, truly hot spring. Hungry avians are hunting shocked, sleepy worms, who nervously dive deeper into my rich earth. Birdy cheeps begin at O-dark-hundred as feathered architects busily construct their homes, then pad them with fluffy miscanthus grass plumes and the half-inch bits of soft white hair I’ve put outside for them to use, after lopping off Joe’s mop. (I’ve been his barber for nearly 50 years...)
Alley cats stretch and smooth their whiskers, pondering their meal selections. (Oh, dear...they do love succulent baby rabbits...)
When I left town two weeks ago for Saginaw, sixteen inches of heavy snow blanketed Traverse City’s iron-hard ground. Six days later I returned here to find bewildered mice sheltering in the garage’s crevices, because their intricate, carved out homes above my garden lawn had suddenly vanished and most of their under-lawn tunnels had caved in, due to my booted footsteps. Only dirty black snow mountains on the Central Grade School’s front lawn remain.
Today, while I was on my knees in the front garden removing layers of autumn’s snow-flattened leaves from the flowerbeds, a lady slowed her car, rolled down her window and yelled, “You really are optimistic, uncovering beds now! Is that wise so early?”
Grinning, I rose, dusted my knees and shrugged. “Actually, I don’t have a choice. With this unprecedented heat everything’s growing so rapidly – plants in the secret garden are nine inches high and rising more than an inch a day – that even working nine-hour days I may not finish in time. The secret garden is registering 94 degrees for the fourth straight day! Outrageous! If I don’t do May’s work right now, it won’t be possible. Growth will be too lush to allow me to work effectively in the flowerbeds.”
I looked down. Near my booted foot a handsome male mallard was quacking endearments to his ladylove, who stood a few feet away, amused, coy, and clearly interested. He boldly waddled closer and they necked. Orange feet flapped through the newly cleaned beds as their courting behavior continued.
“Jeez,” said I, chuckling, “even the ducks are hot and bothered! Animals know when it’s courting time... So- fingers crossed- my garden should be fine.”
The lady laughed, waved and motored away, weaving carefully through a flat-footed flock of hopeful, iridescent male mallards cruising the street and neighboring lawns looking for love.
Another fat dandelion under my boots showed off its rich, saw-bladed greenery. I absently dug it out and filled in the hole while muttering invectives. The mouse-tunnel paths bisecting the secret garden would need filling in, too. I’d been putting that task off. But wait! What if all those displaced mice had been a single mole?I shuddered. Just one can destroy a lawn and garden. Catching it is incredibly difficult. I stifled my hole-y annoyance and felt lucky, after all.
BAM! KA-WHAP! An outraged bird battled a mirror-rival, leaving his powdery profile on the glass. I rolled my eyes and tried to ignore the racket. My shovel chinked as it slid past pebbles and bit into the soft earth. Mallards made out; squirrels scrabbled up and down tree trunks chasing romantic rivals; Les fired up his chainsaw to amputate the garden’s nine huge, snow-flattened grasses; my pruners snapped at winter-blackened stems and vines. A freshly washed open-windowed car cruised by, releasing the deep bass thump-thump ‘muzak’ that, for me, announces the availability of these young, unattached human males on wheels.
This baking spring is awash in sounds, the smell of fresh paint and turned earth, and new life.
(Wow! Not in 2016. Huddling by the kitchen fire, feeling the cold even inside, I smile. Michigan’s weather is never boring.)