the hard part

Here's the hard part. It's really and truly spring here. I know, the cherries bloomed weeks ago and the daffs are gone. The heathers have already peaked and the forsythias are gone to green. The bumblebees are busy, and we knocked down our first wasp nest of the year from the eaves over the garage door. By midwest or east coast standards, this is practically high summer. But the truth is that the ground is finally warming up, and the afternoons are getting into the low 60's and I know that if I poked a shovel into the soft dark earth it would smell like heaven.

The Russian laurels are in flower and elderberries are blooming like mad, both up here and down at the lagoon. The Oregon grape is setting fruit, and the rugosa roses are fleshing out and dropping last year's hips. Rufous hummingbirds are battling it out over our front and back feeders. We have at least two males staked out here, and probably three or four females. I saw my first red-wing blackbird yesterday, as hobbitt and I returned from a brief (and my first post-surgical) trip out of the neighborhood, where I could also catch a glimpse of the dark, imposing and snow-capped Olympics.

I wonder what the mountain streams sound like now. I wonder how the orchids look in the deep woods, or how tall the trilliums are, and what mushrooms are beginning to emerge. I wonder if the Douglas-firs have finished spewing their pollen, those great yellow clouds of swirling dust. I wonder if our resident eagles are raising young.

For the most part I'm not sorry that I didn't do this knee thing sooner. It would have been very difficult to sit in class all day, without being able to elevate the leg. And I wouldn't have been able to spend those last moments with my cousin, either. So it's all good. With luck I'll have other springs here, and all in all my view from this perch is quite nice.

Having my wings clipped right now is a little disheartening. Nothing more, nothing less.