The bright side

The robins are singing again.

I can’t be sure that it’s Julio I’m hearing out there, but whoever it is, they’re greeting me through closed windows each morning, and I’ve missed them.

As I’ve explored before–you know, a few times–I am slightly more dependent than the average bear on the changing seasons for my well-being. Physical. Mental. Emotional. Spiritual.

Let me just tell you that today–this third day of Spring 2020–or, as many of us are marking time these days, this 11th day of declared worldwide pandemic–I am more than ever in need of a little tilt in the temperatures.

There were some promising days there in the past few weeks, warm and melty and smelling distinctly of earth and thawing vegetation. Two weeks ago, Scott and I trucked up to Conserve School to visit Sarah for Family weekend during one of those perfect runs.

Well, technically, we drove up in a blizzard. Jackknifed semis, overturned cars, a 3 1/2 hour trip quickly transformed into 5 1/2.

(For the record, we took the kid UP to Conserve in a blizzard as well.)

But once we got up to the winter wonderland, the melt began again, and we were treated to not only a thick, fresh featherbed of snow on Conserve, but a weekend of sun and temperate bliss. Couldn’t have asked for more.

We came home that Sunday to 60°, with three straight days of hiking the snowy heaven that is Conserve’s 1200-acre Lowenwood under our belts. Spring Time Itch. The next day I spent a little time out in our own 12-acre wilderness. Shall we call it Ottingwood? Ottacres? Whatever the moniker, we communed for a little bit.

That week, Em and I thought we’d head out to Hoffman Hills on the following gorgeous day. It was supposed to be in the upper 40s, and clear as a bell. We woke to clouds and cold and a fresh blanket of snow. Sigh.

We went anyway, but I have no photographic evidence of the snowy trek to the tower–nor the giant slushball flung down at us from the top of said tower by resident punks–save this fantastic chair that we claimed from the jaws of the Library’s dumpster on the way home:

We’re in that rollercoaster time of year, and no plan is good for more than fifteen minutes, but somehow that day turned out alright, even without any cooperation from Mother Nature. The robin’s just keep singing, convinced that spring really is coming, and I have no choice but to believe them.

Well, anyhoo, we trudged up to Conserve again yesterday (yep, another snowstorm, but this one only in the northern reaches of the drive) to retrieve the poor kiddo from Conserve’s most emotionally traumatized semester–or 1/2 semester as the case may be, thanks to the beloved COVID–and today we’re all settling back into life in Ottingwood.

And me? I’m glad I dug the deck furnishings out from the under-deck detritus last week. The view is fine.

If you need me, I’ll be working hard to keep the collective chin up, and the collective distance at greater than 6′,
KJ