Spring...

Hubby and I were walking this morning, enjoying the 70+ weather, and I'm thinking about how our lives have changed. We live in a world of well landscaped, manicured lawns, already chemically treated for weeds and dandelions, paved streets and sidewalks, so unlike the springs of my childhood.

The springs I remember were a debris laden yard, full of branches and twigs from winter storms, soggy earth, full of daffodils and uneven grasses growing in clumps, puddles of water standing about, birds singing in the cherry trees, and my beloved ditch framed with blooming dogwood and redbud trees. The bright yellow forsythia would be a riot of color on it's banks, and the dead grasses that lined it would not yet be covered with summer's leafing vines.

The fields that surrounded us would be green now with winter wheat, and Mother's garden would have winter onions almost ready to eat. The lettuce and radish seeds would long ago have sprouted, having been thrown on the snow in February, because she knew from years of experience to put them down early for leaf lettuce ready to eat by Easter. And I'm also thinking that I much prefer the old way, the way spring was intended to be, with our rough, uncultured yard full of nature's bounty.

I'm just being nostalgic, I know, but the long ago country smells of spring, and the harsh visual remembrances of it are are really intense, this early spring morning in Heavensville...