spring is like a perhaps hand

[Jeferson]

Spring.
Ah, flowers.
Wardrobe adjustments, too?
I've got my eye on this shirt, although I'm wondering if it'll be a challenge wearing this one out on the ball diamond.

Jef

[emmline]

You're definitely limited to grounders, if you wear that.

[Jeferson]

You're definitely limited to grounders, if you wear that.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

Jef

[antstastegood]

You're definitely limited to grounders, if you wear that.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

Jef

There's always the Willie Mays basket-catch.

[energy]

Rural northern Illinois is currently saturated with the musty of smell of wet cropland freshly exposed to clean air. It's an an energetic smell, as though all things have the desire to live again after the death-like slumber of winter. I don't trust it though; we're sure to have a few more serious snowfalls before spring really sets in.

[Cayden]

It has been frosty here, this morning I came back from being a few days out of it. The sun was shining, the wind was north and the air as clean a anything. coming over the last hill going down into the glen that is home the ocean beyond was deep blue, the Kerry mountains stood on the horizon as crisp as anything and Mount Brandon looked like it was sitting just beyond Doonbeg, a spray of snow on top. All around the house the daffodils were in full bloom. I was glad I was back.

[peeplj]

It's in the 40's at night here now, up to about 60 during the heat of the day.

Also it's raining about every other day; we're in the "Arkansas Monsoon Season" where we get half the year's allocated rain all at once (the other half happening in the fall of the year).

The ground is saturated, and everywhere you look all you see is mud.

Mud.

--James

Mud, mud, glorious mud,
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!

[jim stone]

Mud, mud, glorious mud,
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!
So follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
And there we will wallow
In glorious mud.

Hip, Hip, Hippopatamus!

[peeplj]

Jim, you just put a smile on my face!

I didn't know anybody rememered that silly old song except me.

--James

[emmline]

It has been frosty here, this morning I came back from being a few days out of it. The sun was shining, the wind was north and the air as clean a anything. coming over the last hill going down into the glen that is home the ocean beyond was deep blue, the Kerry mountains stood on the horizon as crisp as anything and Mount Brandon looked like it was sitting just beyond Doonbeg, a spray of snow on top. All around the house the daffodils were in full bloom. I was glad I was back.

That's it. I'm coming over there.
(but really...I guess it's a lot how you look at your own surroundings.)

[jim stone]

Spring is like a perhaps hand
E. E. Cummings

III

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

[Nanohedron]

Last evening, ca. 9:30 pm (that's 21.30 to many of you), noted a temperature display that announced a balmy 43F (bollocks on Celsius, sorry). I nearly fainted. Not freezing well after sundown? Seemed unthinkable.

Ah, the humidifying effect of melting snirt...nothing like it. There are fresh shoots of panhandlers poking up thru the paving-cracks to get at the warmth and lucre.

I love Spring.

[Blackbeer]

Ahhh... the mud season. How does it happen so fast? It seems like just last week the ground was covered in snow with an underlying layer of ice just waiting for a careless step. The horses glissend like two thousand pound statues wrot of gold and diamonds. The very air sparkeled with crystaline crispness. Not that I like winter one bit but it can be visualy stunning. Now, however, has begun the time of mud. Now mud on a horse farm is a true "one with nature" experience. You see there is very little of dirt comprising the makeup of the mud. With 20 draft horses shareing that part of there intake deemed undigestable with the rest of the planet for four months, a walk in the fields can prove most interesting. There are, of course, seperate mounds hither and yon but as is the case in the northern seas it is below these mounds lerks the danger. I call them "sh$% burgs" Ice, insulated by the droppings of my friends lurks just waiting to dump you into the most interesting mixture of organic material. And the horses seem to shed their elegance in favour of a good roll in the stuff, coating themselves in a coat of slowley forming lizard skin. They seem to forget altogether their stage persona and regress to their wild state. Of course people still want carriage rides and wagon rides so this dried muck must come off. I can only laugh at the boys, as I slowly scrape and wear away at the armer, looking for some hint of former glory. Truely an inspiring time of year around here.

Tom

[susnfx]

Postively poetic reflections, Tom! Loved your post.

Susan

[Tyghress]

"The sun was warm, but the wind was chill,
You know how it is with an April day,
When the sun is out and the wind is still
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you should so much as dare to speak
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off of the frozen peak,
And your two months back, -- in the middle of March."

Robert Frost - Two Tramps in Mudtime

It is scarce March. Regardless of what we snowbound people may wish, there is still a month of hard winter, and another of mud before we can consider spring to be around the corner. I wager there will be another 3 inch snowfall before equinox.