the f word

EEEEEK, it's in the weather report for tomorrow:  flurries.  That white stuff that we avoid mentioning by name this time of year.  Oh say it isn't so, say it will be rain.  The garden would love a little rain.  My one joy at a weather report like this is the small, but visible, bumps on the tiny branches of the trees, little leafs all curled up ready for spring.  Don't get me wrong, I also take great joy in a wide smooth white expanse dotted with evergreens and crowned by blue as far as you can see, but I am not in a rush for it.

Yesterday's count

a view of the city from the end of the crabapple grove
it's there, honest!

And today's too.  Yesterday I saw a hawk twice.  Once sitting disdainfully on the top of a post observing the world, its kingdom, from the look on its face, and once aloft with a crow and about fifteen magpies.  When I first saw them I thought the hawk was after the crow and the magpies were trying to save it.  Could be the magpies thought so too.  But abruptly the magpies flew off, silence reigned.  The crow and the hawk circled higher and eventually separated amicably.  Today the birds I saw were the flotillas of geese on the river by the big island.  They wait, ready for that which we all know is coming.  The leaves are more and more on the ground and the sky looks bigger for it.  I love the sense of space bare trees give.  Of course by March I am pining for a little green, but let us find the joy of the moment and enjoy it.  Today the sky is blue, the downed leaves are turning orange and brown and I am still biking.

Today's count

A hawk flying low to the ground.   A ground covered in leaves, brown with red highlights.  A group of shrubs sporting spring green, burnt orange of late fall, and bright yellow of early fall.  Yesterday I lay down at the end of the crabapple grove and saw the world as blue, with pale white streaks at the edge of my vision, and a green fringe. The unmowed grasses looked as tall as buildings. Behind me a poplar cackled with the wind.  Today a grounds keeper spread noise and air pollution around with the leaves, supposedly in the firm believe that the wind would not whisper by and move them back again.

summer in Saskatchewan

Amazing what 12 hours can do.  But we can be happy that it did not snow. And I am happy it rained because the plumbers forgot to turn the outside water back on, so I am hauling from three floors up to keep my newly planted tomatoes happy.  My planting them is not the reason the weather turned.  Honest.

slapping season has begun

Where you to ask me my favourite seasons they would be: in spring:  spring, fall, winter, summer; in fall:  fall, spring, winter, summer.  In the crabapple grove today I can say that summer has arrived.  The mini vampires are loose with a vengeance and I slapped my way all the way to the river and back. I can also report, though, that the leaves are spreading out in their full pale green spring colour and sounding against each other as the wind blows.  The wind has also scattered the cloud cover of the last few days and blue is back and wide.