To Be One Of the Beautiful

Pete and I spent much of the morning in the backyard cleaning out garden containers we will reuse this season. Pete took a pitchfork to the leaf pile and trucked the leaves, now mulch, to a garden bed planted with ornamental trees while I stacked pots and organized the little greenhouse. Later, I planted lettuces, herbs, fennel, pak choi and tomatillos in starter trays. Just before noon, Pete greeted neighbors on the other side of the fence I couldn't see. They too were enjoying the sunny weather after a long, miserable winter. Okay, they might've been a little slap-happy about it.

"It's late enough and nice enough that we're having a glass of wine," blurted Matt, while his wife giggled.
"That's a GREAT IDEA!" I said.

At 3, we sat down at the picnic table with glasses of wine. In the distance, we could hear the thug kid down the street talking about his car, but the warm sunlight had a tonic effect on us and neither of us felt homicidal. A carpenter bee stopped by for a visit and buzzed away. On the side of the house, forsythias budded and promised to flower soon. Our stray cat friends Tom and Cream crunched kibble under the porch. Every once in a while, a breeze brought us new scents from near and far. The weather forecast for the next few days is gloomy; we sat still in the sun, soaking in as much spring as we could. After our morning of industry, for one afternoon: quiet.