SPRING

Yes, it’s here at last-Alberta Spring. Unpredictable as always. One day still snowing, the next too warm for a jacket. Then too dry. Then really wet. Soon we are complaining about one or the other. But the truth is we have nothing to complain about. All we have to do is turn on the TV news and see what other places must endure. Here, we are engulfed in the many shades of green of newborn leaves. The grass already needs mowing a second time. The flowering plum has burst into a cloud of pink. The air is redolent with the scent of unfolding balsam poplar leaves. Apple and cherry trees are budding. The delicate purple pasque flowers have already come and gone. A “host of golden daffodils” as they were once poetically described, bring their own sunshine to the lower lawn. I go to sleep to the sound of birds still singing in the lingering twilight and wake to them tuning up again. Troops of sassy calves enact cavalry charges across the pasture while their mothers placidly chomp down yet another mouthful of the fresh grass. The garden is planted. The weeds are up. The world is surely unfolding as it should!