5J: The Feel of Spring

I can almost feel Spring this year. Not just the warmer temperatures, not just the southern breezes but something more. It feels like excitement, like something new. I sense beauty and hope and a hint of promise when I step outside. I've been trying to listen to it, to see if I recognize it's voice or it's feel, but it alludes me. I can't quite touch it, taste it, feel it or name it. It might be a refreshing of my mind, a change of attitude. It could be the promise of some color on my lumpy white Iowa winter legs. Who knows.

It could be these pigs that passed through the farm for a brief minute two weeks ago.

These beautiful porkers are going to be filling up my freezer very soon. They stopped by so I could get a look at them before they went to visit their friend the butcher. I saw what I needed to see. You might see a pig's butt (can I say that?), I see a ham for Easter. Easter. There is always hope at Easter

This was April Fool's. Pure craziness. Laughter never shows up at your door empty handed. Once laughter enters the room, hope and renewal are close behind.

To honor Spring, Holly got a brand new lavender collar. It's so pretty. I wish it still looked this pretty. I caught a glimpse of it this morning when Holly was hovering around the calves during feeding time. It's covered in chicken poop and calf drool but it's still pretty. She honestly doesn't think about it. She is a dog. I remind her of that fact all the time. "Holly, you're a dog. No, you cannot come in the front door and sit on the couch." She is persistent. Hmm... is there something in her doggy persistence. Perhaps I'll call it 'the parable of the persistent dog' and remind myself it never hurts to ask.

The farm is starting to come to life. The farmer who tends the ground around us was out this morning getting the fields ready for the seed that will soon be planted. My daffodils and tulips are ready to burst into their Easter outfits of yellow and red. We're almost there, not quite.

I wait, inhale as deeply as I can, try to calm myself, and wait. Maybe it will be a vase of daffodils on my dining room table filling the house with their beauty, their promise, and their hope.