every day is a good day
It’s always warm and cheery at Tweets in Edison when I deliver eggs on Fridays. Yesterday was especially warm and cheery with Deakin Hicks filling the café with their wonderful music. I could have stayed for hours, I was that amused.
Not amused this morning. Nope, not amused. What month is this? January? It’s March. The cherry blossoms are wanting to burst open, but they can’t under the heavy weight of cold snow.
Kuro-hime 黒姫 is most definitely not amused this morning.
“Live as if today is the last day of your life,” goes the saying. At times you wish it was the last day. What to make of the frequent snows when I want to be planting in the garden? What if today’s snow was the last of my life? What if after today I could no longer see the morning sun make the snowy fields sparkle?
Or see sweet daphne buds poking out through the snow?
Or smile at long blades of grass bending under the snow?
Or feel the cold snow between my toes? What if indeed.
Oh Spring, where art thou? It’s an oft repeated cry this February. I should be out weeding and planting and … and … and, but this morning all I can do is be delighted by the beautiful snow. There are years when it never snows. The pruned pear trees look lovely. The dogs are having fun. The rosemary is crushed, but it will rebound. There is no mistaking where the fence is. The bench by the pond has a soft cushion to sit on. The chickens are laying eggs. The witch hazel is still fragrant. It bends easily underneath the heavy snow and springs back at the slightest touch. And Takuma is chomping away at the dried lovage stems. How could I possibly be sad?
When spring and winter dance, towering clouds leap over the mountains, dragging curtains of snow through the tree tops. These dances are so ephemeral that if you are driving, you have to pull over to the side of the road to stop to enjoy them.
Blooming witch-hazel mark the end of winter and the beginning of spring. These beguiling flowers remind me of colorful spiders. A few days after they open, their spicy fragrance makes you close your eyes and have pleasant dreams.
The “witch” in witch-hazel has nothing to do with the spell these flowers cast. It comes from the Old English “wice” which means that the plants are pliable.
The young chicks are ever so curious. I’m watching them eat. They are watching me, wondering what I am. Humans and dogs often tilt their heads when they are trying to figure out something. Chickens turn their head, first looking at you with one eye, and then the other.
