This is what it looks like on the other side. On the other side of what? On the other side of the year where nights are longer than days. This far north, we are now on the side of the year where days are longer than nights.

There are other ways to divide the year into two. You have the time of the year when the days are getting longer and the time of the year when the nights are getting longer. These methods divide the year into equal halves.

Here in the Skagit Valley you could also divide the year into the time when there are swans, and the time when there are no swans. There are just a few swans here and there. Soon we will be in the time of year when there are no swans. But all is not hopeless, weeping and gnashing of teeth, sackcloth and ashes. We may be slipping into the time of year when there are no swans flying around, but as it is the time of year when the days are longer than the nights, joy and happiness abounds.

A more extreme division of the year is the time of year when there are cherry buds and blossoms, and the time of year when there are not. If I could pick the time of year, no the day I die, it would be a day of blue skies, puffy clouds, and cherry trees in full bloom. Wheel me out underneath a blooming cherry tree on a sunny day and let that be the last thing I see, the fragrance of cherry blossoms the last thing I breathe, the buzzing of bees in the cherry blossoms the last thing I hear.

I wouldn’t fault someone for doing nothing but watching the clouds all day long. On my way to the post office, the clouds dangled intriguingly in the southern sky. And twenty minutes later, they same clouds, in the same spot, had transformed into an enormous ring around the sun.

If clouds can pull a feat like that in twenty minutes, imagine all the wonderful things you’d see if you watched them all day long. You’d never get bored.

Spending an afternoon gardening with ducks releases more stress than a season’s worth of therapist sessions. There are too many therapists, not enough ducks in people’s lives.

Duck’s feet are captivating with their intricate patterns. I could see a duck saying, “She had a pretty bill, wonderful colors on her feathers, but it was the patterns on her feet that did it for me.”

Spring is unfolding. The sun is moving north, the days are getting longer. The swans are fattening up to fly north, gathering the strength to take off and maybe never come back. Any week now, when I go down into the valley they will be gone. If they’d only fly by to let me know they are on their way north, it would mean a lot. But I mean nothing to them. They will never come say good bye to me. And they will never know how much they mean to me.

The crocus and daffodils are opening. The first of so many flowers to come.

Moonlit clouds at night show how fleeting things are. Everything changes second by second. Every time I venture out, enough things change so that I may as well be traveling down the road I’ve traveled for years as if it were the very first time.

I run into so many mysteries, at times I wish I had an office full of private investigators I could send out to solve these puzzles. Not too long ago I was biking from the Bow Post Office to Allen and saw Brussels sprouts along the side of the road. Not just one or two, but several miles of them, one, two, or three every so often. Where did they come from? A modern Hansel and Gretel dropping Brussels sprouts as they walked along so they could find their way home? Naughty children in a car, tossing Brussels sprouts out of a grocery bag so they wouldn’t have to eat them?

The most likely explanation is that they fell off a truck hauling a harvest of them, only there are no fields of Brussels sprouts nearby. How many detectives would it take to solve the mystery? What would the people who lived along Chuckanut Drive say when someone knocks on their door to ask, “When did you first see the Brussels sprouts on the road?” They would want to hire their own detective to find out why this mysterious person appeared at their door asking about Brussels sprouts.

Most of the mysteries I encounter will stay mysteries forever. Maybe unsolved mysteries are the cause of old age dementia. Perhaps unsolved riddles keep piling up in the brain until it short circuits. One mystery was solved today. I saw the first Robin of the season hopping about. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen the first Robin of spring. It’s as exciting as ever.