Let the Madness of Spring Begin

It's wishful thinking.  The photo above was taken a couple of years ago, probably long after the calendar date that told us it was spring.

Spring is coming through, though, in various wave lengths but only weak ones so far.  

Even after a night of freezing temperatures, the Lovestead robin herd was bounding about, pecking into the ground for their breakfast worms.

Most of the lawn area is now bare ground, although large masses of stubborn, rock hard snow seem to want to hang around a while.

If I'm lucky, these will melt before I go away, and the winter's supply of dog logs will no longer act as gushy land mines to avoid with virtually every step taken. 

This morning I cleaned my last horse stalls for at least a month.  That was a good feeling and definitely a welcome sign of spring.

Normally, I clean stalls until late April, but Lily and Lefty will load up in the trailer and head off a little later to a horse motel/school where someone else mucks out the stalls. 

That's okay with me.  I'll happily substitute stall cleaning for some brisk early morning walks. Gotta keep in shape for our upcoming trip cuz I know we'll be walking a lot in Ireland, and this old body needs to stay tuned up. 

The most obvious techno hint of spring starts at 9 a.m. with Ohio State playing Dayton in the first game of March Madness. 

We'll probably be listening to games on our Sirius radio while driving to and from Spokane. It would be tempting, on the way back, to go park the pickup and trailer somewhere, walk over to the Spokane Arena and see if we could get in for some of the NCAA action there. 

We'll probably just drive on home, though, because there's plenty to do around here. 

Yup, spring has come today, certainly not in its full glory, but we're not complaining because we are seeing and experiencing daily progress---unlike some years when winter snows wiped out the first month of spring  

It will be a while before the pretty daffodils start popping up from the ground, and that's okay with me. Seems like when that stuff happens, the long-awaited beauty races by all too fast. 

For now, a little sunshine, a whole lot of bird singing, no stall cleaning and hours of March Madness will satisfy our desires for the early days of this season.

Then, there's Ireland.  Not bad!

Happy Thursday.