Winter is Gone; Spring has Sprung; Click up Your Heals and Groan?

It is finally spring time here in the North East. If my life were a made-for-TV movie, it would fade to lovely outdoor scenes with crocuses (or is that crocii?) pushing through rich dark soil, and bursting forth in bright, glorious yellow blooms. The scene would pan upwards to small green buds as they escape from the dark bony limbs of a maple tree.

The scene would then sweep out across the well-kept, newly greening lawn, to view my young children playing in the springtime sun. They would be dressed, smartly, all in white, and despite their springtime shenanigans on the tender grass and the damp earth, their outfits would remain spotless.

Neither my yard, nor my life, is a made-for-TV movie.

My yard, in the springtime, could better be described as a bog; so wet, that it almost borders on being on a small lake. I live on a corner lot, bounded along one edge by a thick row of hedges. My house is downwind from a grocery store, two department stores, a chain pharmacy, and a combination gas station-convenience store-donut shop. There are innumerable scraps of stuff that make their way from these commercial enterprises and end up in my yard; add to that all of the garbage that people toss from their cars as they drive by. I have picked up hundreds of lottery tickets, all of them losers. I am waiting for the day when someone accidentally tosses out the winning ticket onto my lawn. I will probably be kind enough to return it, but they are going to pay a hefty fine for littering in my yard.

In the middle of the yard stands an old apple tree. I know it is old because the trunk is well over two feet in diameter. This winter has been particularly rough on that ol' tree. Early in the season, a heavy wet snowfall brought down a very large branch, and now, in early spring, almost 6 months later, I still need to saw it into smaller pieces and have it removed.

With all of this work needing to be done in my yard, so my teenage children can go out in their white formal attire and frolic, I watched the weather forecast closely. I needed a few days of warmth, sun, and a light breeze, to dry the bog, so I could reclaim it as a yard.

And the weather co-operated. For two days in a row, we had warm sun and gentle breezes. The second day promised to be warmer than 80 degrees. I made mental plans to get outside and start the reclamation process.

Then I saw the forecast for the third day, the day after it was to be above 80. It called for rain, turning to snow, with temperatures falling into the mid 20‘s.

I think I will start a peat moss factory.