For a couple of days every year, usually along about
February, I wake up and think, “Why, why, why
do I live here?” Then I pull the covers back up over my head and moan. Long, pitiful, sorry-for-myself, moany-moans of misery.
But it never lasts.
A day like today eventually arrives to kick me in the seat
of the pants and remind me: This. This is why you live in this particular spot
in this particular part of Montana. And this is why you love it.
Nine little pairs of mating robins are scuttling and
scampering all over Flower Farm, grabbing up nest construction materials,
like daylily foliage and other perennial debris I left standing last
fall for just this reason. Well. Possibly the reason was procrastination before the first hard snow. Things looked pretty ratty all winter long. But now, everything worked out. See? I knew I was doing it right.
Yesterday, I scattered some drier lint at
the base of a few trees. Today, it's all gone. It makes my heart smile to
know some perfect, beautiful, speckled aqua eggs will soon be pillowed by fuzzy
cast-off fibers from Greg’s socks and underpants. Robin's egg blue on Jockey and Hanes' remnants. Swoon.
Crowns of peonies and bleeding hearts have called early
spring’s bluff, stretched their cell memories, and broken through the soil in
their annual miracle of survival and rebirth. For sure, early spring still has a few cold
snaps and snowstorms up her sleeve, but these first brave plants stubbornly
refuse to pay her any mind. Not today, with sunlight glinting on their tender
green tippy-tops and egging them on toward future glory.
I can’t wait for a lazy afternoon a few months from now, when
the bleeding hearts will stand fully upright and stretch their arms wide, draped
by graceful arches of blossoms, and my grandson Evan will giggle: “Grandma! Let’s pick one and do the naked lady
in the bathtub!”
Stay tuned. When the day comes, I'll post a photo, and you too can enjoy the naked
lady in the bathtub. Fine. Call us immature. But here at Flower Farm, the bleeding
heart version of a naked lady in the bathtub is hysterically funny. Especially
if you are a seven-year-old boy.
Newspaper shreds, sawdust and leftover produce the deer were
kind enough to leave alone (thank you, Yard Deer; thank you, Blue the Cow Dog, for chasing the Yard Deer) has transformed into rich
black compost down below, and I can’t wait to sink in my shovel and wheelbarrow
a few loads into our cutting beds and perennial gardens. Maybe I’ll even brew
some compost tea.
There is work to be done. Lawn to rake, baby weeds to pull,
seeds and bulbs to plant, root clumps to divide and move. The greenhouse is pulling me in.
This Montana day, this Montana season, inspires me to kick back
the covers. Go outside. Feel the joy and renewal that follows the long cold
winter. So I leap up, ready for it all, eager for it all, energized by it all.
In the spring, I am more fully myself and fully alive than
any other time of year. More loaded with optimism and faith in tantalizing possibilities yet to be revealed.
I am ready. For sore
muscles, and pink sunburned shoulders, and tired grins, and dirty fingernails,
and dinner at ten o’clock at night.
Spring is here, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Happy Spring.
