Dreaming the World

A pleasant early spring day, sunny with a high overcast which is ever so slowly thickening. The equinox is only a few days away, and today the birdsong has been abundant and energetic, especially from the starlings and blackbirds. The windstorm earlier this week took down a conifer abutting the field, separating the canopy from the trunk. We are promised much needed rain Sunday night.

I’m struggling to do anything, caught between the mire of crazy events that are out of my control on one hand, and the promise of spring in the other. I have left a large drawing untouched in the studio for days, and sound files are pilling up, awaiting processing. I have been reading a Louise Penny detective novel, pure pleasure.

Although the weather is warm and clear, it does not really feel like spring, as brown remains the dominant color as it has all winter. I like to imagine there is more of a green tint to the grass, but I think that is still a stretch. Even the conifers have a brown, wintry tinge to their green. The persistent chill wind does not help.

Our croci are no where to be found; they failed to come back last year and any hope for this year is now gone. The fig survived the winter and, along with a few other trees, is showing new buds! A few brave daffodils have come up among the remains of last year’s various stalks in the otherwise bare gardens and this year’s garlic crop brings a pale green to the raised beds.

I am reminding myself that in a few weeks we will buy seedlings and stock plants and Jennie will revive the gardens. By that time the morning sun will have made it to the north side of the house where are deck and sun porch are located, providing light and warmth to Nori, and whatever plants find their way to the deck. In the deck’s raised beds the herbs will be rapidly growing, providing fresh flavors for our table.

Friends have found the first post-meander deer tick, promising the peppers will soon be back, as will the osprey and our summer avian visitors. We have not fed the birds this winter, although they have asked, and will not feed during breeding season as the avian flu remains wide spread and lethal. I hope that over time birds will develop resistance to the flu and begin to recover their depleted numbers, but their recovery may well depend on us humans changing much that we do.

Earlier, Jennie went for a long walk with friends, and returned home praising the restorative power of nature. There is much that is comforting about gardens and the natural world, even more so in difficult times. As spring brings the promise of renewal, we are reminded that in the end, nature always reclaims the world.