If you look at wood drying long enough, you can see it change color. Day by day, the sun, the wind, and the rain, bleach, dry, and stain the wood. The show goes on until this coming winter, when the wood will burn in the wood stove, putting on one last dazzling show of brilliant yellow, white, blue, green and red flames.

On the way home from an errand I had to stop to enjoy these clouds billowing up over the Cascade Mountains. Clouds are the ultimate performance artists. They create these massive works of art, and then, phft, they’re gone. They come and go so frequently, we don’t even think about it.

To the earth, we’re just a phft too. To an earth that is 4 billion years old, a person who lives a hundred years is as significant as something that lasts 90 seconds for someone who lives a hundred years. Who cares about something that flits around for just 90 seconds?

When you think about it that way, our lives come and go so quickly, in the grand scheme of things, they have no meaning. Each one of us is just a phft. And that’s a good thing. It’s liberating to know we don’t matter. We’re free to be happy and enjoy life. We don’t have to waste our time building a legacy, accumulating things that in the long run don’t mean a thing, trying to impress the others. We can live like butterflies. All that’s important is what we are doing minute by minute, enjoying all the wonderful phfts that pass our way. We’re as transitory as puffy clouds.

Are these hens sharing or being selfish? There are three empty nests around them, yet Yuki-hime, the white hen, insists on sitting on Lucky when she wants to lay an egg. The conversation the two had before they settled in on top of each other didn’t sound like a harmonious, “Oh, yes, please, come join me in this cozy nest. Pretty please.” It sounded more like a bar room brawl, with Yuki-hime shrieking at the top of her lungs into Lucky’s ear. Then again, maybe that is what passes as friendly conversation in chicken land.

I wasn’t expecting any of this today. While putzing around the place, I stumbled upon a pink rhododendron in full bloom. It wasn’t that many days when I said, “This is going to bloom soon.” Wow! And now it is.

Deep in the, woods while going to check on what the dogs were so ferociously barking at, I came face to face with a pink trillium. A little further on, white trilliums. I may not have ever seen that pink trillium were it not for whatever invading creature set the dogs off. They say, “Learn something new every day.” I say, “Be surprised every day.” When the dogs bark, go on an adventure.

The moment I stepped outdoors this morning, it felt different. The morning chill was gone. The misty air was soft and comforting. The mist lifted, the sun came out, and the air warmed all morning and afternoon, topping out at 70ºF. Today was the warmest day of the year so far, the first 70ºF day of 2015.