Look! Look! Look!

I glanced out the window a minute ago and my knees nearly buckled.  Look what I saw.  Next door's maple tree is BUDDING.  That's right, people, actual signs of life not twenty feet from my bedroom window.  Oh, I know I've been showing you flowers and buds and shoots of plants that nestle into the micro-climates surrounding the house but this is a gigantic tree, maybe sixty feet tall, and it's busting its buds with life right here in my neighborhood.  This tree is the last one to lose its leaves in fall and I find myself pleading with it to drop its leaves when the others do and then cursing it when it has held onto all those leaves until after I've given in and raked or mowed up all the other trees' leaves but now, right this very minute, this is my favorite tree in the whole wide world because it's shouldering the last of the winter winds aside and shoving Spring down Winter's throat.  Take that, you... you... Winter with your icy blasts, snow and freezing temps, the sun's headed back our way and we're so done with you.  *nods confidently*


A few hours ago when I got the paper off the porch I saw that the first of the little squills is blooming and its compatriots aren't far behind, and on the renters' side the mini-daffodils are up and blooming.  Peter Cottontail was nibbling fallen birdseed and grass shoots when I opened the patio curtains and there were two packages of Peeps in the giant carton of wetsuits that came to the store the other day.  Mrs. Boss let me have my pick.  Wasn't that nice?  Peeps!

Last night at Knitting Guild the Design-A-Thon entries were everything I'd hoped to see and more.  Not as many people managed to have something ready to enter as had originally hoped but what was there was amazing.  There was a wide variety of items, even a shawl pin knitted with wire and beads.  !!!!!  The designer of it agreed to teach us how this summer when we meet to knit in the park across the street.  (oh, goodie, goodie, goodie, that should be interesting)  There was a gorgeous alpaca sweater knitted with two colors of yarn from a nearby alpaca farm (all that math!), some two-color Fair Isle/cabled mittens (whew!), a couple of incredibly cute wine bottle sweaters (I might need to see about buying one of those), headbands, scarves, cowls, an amazing felted and beaded bag with a handmade tooled and dyed leather handle, hats, and socks, oh, and my Triple Twist Cabled Mitts.  The consensus was to have another challenge again next year--two of the people said they'd already started working on their 2015 design.  Yikes, I'd better get my thinking cap on.  Prizes will be awarded next month at the picnic.

April 11--Greek, Panathenaic Prize Amphora.

Some old Greek guy
paints a soldier with his shield
and two roosters on pillars
on a clay jug and they call it
art.

Maybe it was a dollar store
jug in its day,
every house had one,
they were a dime
a dozen.

It survives a mere
twenty-seven hundred years
unbroken and suddenly it's
a treasure.

Take better care
of your Starbucks
travel mug

just in case.
~~~~~

Today I am definitely going to drag the birdie trees down to the curb.  Definitely.  And whip up a batch of cornbread for tomorrow's sausage cornbread stuffing for when DS & DIL1 & LC come over for supper.  I promised LC asparagus so I'll need to nab another bunch of that when I'm out getting the sausage.  Can't forget about dessert.  Hmm, what about cupcakes or maybe pie?  I'll have to see what Durwood thinks--when he wakes up from his nap.  Time to drag.  I want to get out in that mild air.
--Barbara