It has been a while since I proffered a solid April Fool's prank.  A bunch of years ago I drafted a fake resignation letter and left it sitting on my desk where it was sure to be noticed.  I didn't mention it to anyone but I am sure it was seen.  That was a fair prank.

When I actually worked in an office regularly with a bunch of coworkers we participated in shenanigans now and again.  I once came back from a week off to find my office decorated with a tropical theme.  Instead of going away to some place warm for a week, I had spent the time at home.  This was how my coworkers made sure I got some tropics time.

Another time I came back from a conference to find pretty much everything in my office labeled.  I had brought in a label writer with adhesive labels for other purposes and it got used until the tape ran out.  There were maybe a couple hundred labels on all the office stuff you can think of:  lamp, outlet, light switch, monitor, phone, stapler, pile of papers, Earth (on a squishy stress ball), pretty picture (on a print on the wall), even dust.

That was my favorite prank of which I was the recipient.  Although. I did come back to a house I lived in once to find my bedroom door filled with firewood.  That wasn't a bad one.  I came back late and was tired and had to quietly (I did not know which of several housemates had done it and I couldn't bear to wake the wrong ones) remove half of it so I could climb over it and into bed.  It turns out it was a collective effort, the butts.

One of the people who had pulled that prank had pulled another that I highly approved of.  Her roommate had a jar of pennies and when the housemate of mine moved out she emptied the jar and placed pennies in every spot she could find.  Apparently pennies showed up for years afterward, her roommate shaking them out of pockets and shoes and bags.

I did a similar thing when I left a job for graduate school.  I figured I wouldn't need the couple hundred business cards I had left so on my last day I left them inside books, in drawers, in hanging files, under lamps, wherever.  I ended up working back at that same place after graduate school.  I found those business cards at intervals the whole time I worked there.  Just rewards, eh?

I just came back from a run.  I ran along US Route One as I am down in Connecticut for a conference.  I love to run in a new place and I had no idea where I was going.  I just took a left and followed what seemed both interesting and unlikely to get me lost.

As I ran, I thought, as I always do, about current happenings in my personal world.  I am away from home at a bad time.  My wife is dealing with a very ill mother, and she also has to take care of the children by herself while I am gone.  I am distracted by this and I hope I can get a lot out of being here without worrying too much or feeling too guilty.

I try not to worry in general.  Who doesn't know what a waste of energy that is?  But I can't help it at times.  We worry when circumstances my lead to unknown outcomes, when we feel we have little of no control.  That is the case here.  Everything might be just fine at home, holding steady, moving along just fine.  But everything may not be.  Hence the sense of worry.

I also don't want to feel guilty, which is also a waste of energy.  I need to be aware of how my actions and words affect others, and I also need to make choices and know that I have made deliberate choices.  Guilt, of course, is not always over what we can control, but sometimes over what we think we should have been able to control.  I may feel guilty if someone else suffers at what seems to be my expense.  There is some value to this, as it helps me stay tuned to what I do and say.  But it really doesn't help make things better.

These are the kinds of things I am pondering as I run along the sidewalks, past marinas and car dealerships, past the Dunkin Donuts truck backing into the place at the funky intersection, past the outlet mall and the 200 year old houses.  I passed the Historical Engineering Museum and was intrigued, but it is only open Thursdays from 5:00-7:00 PM.  I may not make it to see that.  My mind flops around in these situations for what I see before me to what I have been turning over for many days.

It is 8:30 AM and I have gone for a run (5-6 miles?), checked out the beach, showered, shaved, decided I really do need to take out those sticky contact lenses, donned glasses, made a phone call (I had to leave a message) and sat to write.  I have a full day ahead of me.  I hope my mind doesn't flop too much when it would be useful to pay attention.  That is why I go for a run.

Driving my children to school yesterday, we were listening to music, as we often do.  They often request music and tend not to be fussy about what they hear.  They have eclectic tastes.  In this case, we were listening to bluegrass. 

The chorus of one of the songs includes this line:  When I die, I'll live again.  It is a reference to heaven and the song celebrates one idea of the afterlife.  Near the end of the song my daughter asked me this question:

"Daddy, when I die, will I be born again as a baby?"

She hears what comes her way, and when she does, she thinks about it.  She was thinking about the above line of the song.  She occasionally asks questions about death, and this was a natural question at this point in her thinking about the topic.  It was an intelligent question.

I told her that I did not know.  I told her that many people believe they have some kind of life when they die, but no one knows for sure.  I said that if she were born again as a baby, which is what some believe, then she would probably not remember what happened before then. 

She heard what I said and it was enough at the moment.  Then she kept thinking.

I am at a conference in Connecticut, my home state.  I was set up to be roommates with a colleague I have not known well, at least until these past couple of days.  It turns out we have a bit in common. 

He is a parent (although his children are grown), he writes poetry, and he is a distance runner.  I have been inspired by our conversations.  He has run a few ultramarathons, including the Vermont 50, my only ultramarathon.  He volunteers for the Vermont 100 each year.  I have been thinking about it lots lately and I am excited about the idea of a 100.

I have wanted to do one for a while.  I am thinking I may want to try for 2009.  There is a chance I could run the Vermont 50 this fall but I really have not been training lots.  It would mean a big time commitment and I am unsure to what I can commit at this point.  But a year from this summer might be possible for the 100. 

At the least, I should try for some kind for long run this fall.  The Green Mountain marathon in October might be a possibility.  Or something else.  I need to have a goal to keep myself running long.  If I have a goal then I can avoid making excuses.  At least I can avoid making excuses often. 

The two of us ran together this morning.  We did not go far or fast but it was good to run with someone else for a change.  Mostly it is a solo pursuit for me.  We chatted and both talked about the idea of running the Vermont 100 in 2009.  That might work.  If I have a goal and have someone pushing me to do it (and in this case ribbing me if I get behind in training), I will be more likely to make it happen. 

I am not committed yet, but I will mull it over.  I have been called a muller before, and this one needs some mulling.  Time to train means time away from other things, including my family.  So we'll see.  A little time in the home state may just turn out to be the catalyst I have needed.

Out in snow and rain earlier today, I witnessed birds, returned from the south.

A snipe, circling the fields, its eerie trilling sifting down through the wet snow, landed by the river.

A hundred ducks, paddling in groups in the large puddles of flood, rose in loud irritation as I approached.

A song sparrow, its song still rusty, tossed out its collection of sweet notes from a row of white pines.

A kestrel, perched on an electric wire, dipped over the brown flattened grass as I neared, then soared to a bare maple and waited there until I passed again on my way back.

Red-winged blackbirds, rising in unison, like a school of fish in the air, swirled beside me, their red wing bars flashing despite the gray day.

A flicker, both pecking and calling in the trees behind the house, announced itself. 

And geese, many many geese, flying overhead, resting in the soggy fields, swimming on the swollen river. 

Soon, others will return.  Now, when I head out, I bring binoculars or a scope.  I want to see them as they find their way again in this place.  This helps me find my own.

This is revised from an earlier version.  It seems appropriate for both National Poetry Month and for the upcoming tax filing deadline.


DEATH DOES HIS TAXES

April and finally he gets out
the calculator and receipts.

So many sub-zero days
this winter kept him

busy even into spring.
Too many people, he mutters

as he punches the keypad,
shuffles white and black

forms, his mind wandering.
The pro-lifers were active again

and he already cursed the mess
that would bring later on.

The homeless were lining up,
thanks to Meth and public schools.

The Endangered Species Act
was on the block. And global warming…

But an audit wouldn’t help things.
Outside the window a robin

weaves rabbit fur and spider webs
into a nest for its coming clutch.

Maybe for a change this year
he would let them all make it.

My wife and I had a brief conversation this morning.  "I want to run the Vermont 50 this fall," she tells me.  Funny, I had the same idea.  We did some calculations and figure we just might be able to do it.

I ran seven miles this afternoon.  Seven and a quarter miles, actually.  I know, I have a long way to go to be ready for 50 miles, but it is a good start.  Since this back blow-out situation I have been slowly building.  I am ready now to crank.

We will both need to make sure we get in long runs on weekends (or at least once per week).  We will have to switch off with the children sometimes and get someone to watch them at other times.  When we trained the last time, one of the best things about it was running together.

As I was running today I was thinking of one of my favorites from that time.  We would run the Stowe bike path out and back, about ten miles.  Then we would drive up the road to the Cotton Brook Trail and run a loop there, about ten miles.  We would get in twenty.  Sometimes we would run twenty the next day, too.

As I said, I have a long way to go, but as I said, I am ready to crank.  It will be fun.

Recently I wrote about a visit to a local sugarhouse and how I was looking forward to getting some fresh spring syrup.  Well, yesterday (really today) we got some.

A friend called and asked for a little help with his backyard sugaring setup.  He can do most of it himself but needs help with the final filtering stage.  I agreed to help out.  The four of us went over to check things out in the afternoon.  He has a couple of small children so they all played in the woods, dangerously close to the hot stove pipe at times, but having a grand time.  It is a sweet (so to speak) set up.

He has an oven built with cinder blocks and a custom iron door.  The large steaming pans nestle perfectly on top.  They were filled with sap and boiling when we got there.  The kids helped add the last two buckets of the season.  The run was just about at its end.  We stayed for a while, then asked how much longer he would be.  He said it could be several hours.

Now, two small kids, in the woods, the air temperature dropping, the sky darkening, bed time approaching, with nothing but snacks, seemed a little iffy, so we offered to take the kids while he finished up.  That is what we did. 

We fed them mac and cheese, managed to get them some jammies, read some books and tried to get them off to sleep.  Although it took a while in a setting they were not used to, they did get to sleep.  It was about 9:30 when that happened, but still, they were dozing.

Our friend came back to our house about 10:30 PM.  He did come bearing finished syrup, however.  It needs to boil down to just the right consistency, and we did that part on our stovetop.  After lots of heat, several attempts with the hydrometer to measure the specific gravity, it was ready.  We filtered it through a big wool filer (this was the step where help was supposedly needed, and it was), heated one more time to get it sterilized, then poured it into bottles and jars.

It was close to 1:00 when he carried the children out the car to be transported home.  It had to be done, however, and I am glad we were able to help.  The children got a lot more sleep than they would have in the cold, dark woods, and we got a quart of syrup out of the deal.

Seems like a fair trade to me.  Plus, it was a lot of fun.  Now tonight I need to get some sleep.

Yesterday morning I was driving to visit students at a nearby high school and I felt pumped to run.  I had run over seven miles the day before, farther than I had gone in a long time.  Driving in the morning light, I was itching.  I wanted to run again.

I got up early this morning and ran.  I was tuckered as all get out.  It was not the run I was picturing the morning before.  On that morning drive I was remembering all the incredible runs I have had, where I went long and felt great.  This morning I felt like a lump.  My legs were lead.  I was tired.  I had to call myself names to get moving.

Now, at the end of the day, I feel great.  I am anxious to get out there again tomorrow.  I want to do those long runs that feel great, but it takes time to get there.  I need to work up to that, I know.  Tomorrow I will do the same five and a half miles I did today, not a big run but long enough.  Every run gets me closer to running farther. 

It really is a silly thing.  I run so that I can run again later.  I run so that I can run farther.  Every run means another run that may feel better.  That isn't all of it, however.  Each run feels good in its own right.  Today I felt like a slug, sure, but I also saw hooded mergansers rising off the river.  I saw two coyote skeletons that vultures had picked clean.  I heard phoebes and robins and blackbirds signing.  I smelled and felt the spring air.  I watched the sun rise.

And that is really what it is all about--physically experiencing the world, with my body as well as my mind.  I push my body and focus my mind.  I pay attention internally as well as to the world around me.  I pay attention.  I notice.  I am in the world.  I am part of the world.  I am not just an observer. 

In short, I am excited to get out there, tomorrow and the next day and in days to come.  One of these days I will not be able to run.  If I am lucky, I will simply be too old and worn out.  I need to make it happen while I can.

We recently got a home weather station.  It measures temperature, indoor and out, humidity, wind speed and direction, and offers a forecast for the next 24 hours.  Once I got it set up and mounted, it worked pretty well.  Only, I mounted the wind measurement device backwards.

This piece needs to be aligned north to south in the right way so it can accurately measure the wind direction.  It has a handy arrow on it so the person mounting it can mount it correctly.  I knew this and took care to set it up so it is aligned north to south, just facing the wrong way.  This afternoon I tried to correct it. 

I tried to correct it today because it has been windy as all get out.  The wind is gusting to at least 20 miles per hour here on this open lot.  But the wind speed is reading less than ten miles per hour.  Nine miles per hour is the highest gust it has recorded.  That just ain't right.

I took it down and set it up to face the right way.  That fixed one problem.  Then I tried to figure out what was up with the low readings.  I thought maybe it was giving a low reading because of a tree or the orientation of the device.  But that didn't make sense, and it didn't matter.  I took it apart and put it together again.  That did not help.  It seems the problem is the the spinning jobber doesn't spin fast enough.  It seems to have some friction that makes it vibrate and spin more slowly.  Not sure what to do about that.

At the moment it tells me that the wind is out of the south and blowing with a slight breeze.  Since the house is creaking and the walls are being buffetted, I do not believe it.  Maybe I can lube it? 

I suppose I should call the company to see what they have to say about it.  Maybe there is someone on the assembly line who opposes kite flying or sailing and wants to discourage people from participating in these activities.  If I call, they might find out, and maybe they'll fire that bastard.  I should do my part for workplace efficiency, no?

Today I took time to run eleven miles.  Two things about that:  first, I ran with my wife, which pretty much never happens, let alone that far;  second, this is the farthest I have run in many months.  It felt pretty good, although I had enough of a pain in my calf that we walked the last couple of miles.

I had to take a break from work (I was working from home today) but I will make that up tonight.  I have to make some phone calls to parents, and that will take a while.  It was a break worth taking.  Eleven miles is a good distance.  I will have to take a couple of days to rest this calf of mine, but I am in business.  I am thinking perhaps a spring half marathon?  A summer marathon? 

I was limping a little earlier, more from stiffness than from pain.  I popped some Vitamin I (ibuprofen) although I am not sure if it made a difference.  I had this pain a little the last time I ran and so kept it short.  This was a bit of a push today but I managed to do fine.

The run is on a route with very little pavement, maybe half a mile.  It winds up and down hills, and past farms and meadows.  We saw coltsfoot blooming, the first flowers of spring, and listened to many birds of spring, including killdeer.  It was beautiful, and spending that time with my spouse was pretty dang good.

In a couple of days I will run again.  It really is fun.  I used to think it was silly, starting and stopping in the same place, with lots of effort in the middle.  Now I get it.  I know many people do not get it.  I am OK with that.  As a friend of mine used to say, if you've been there, you've been there.  I happen to have been there.

This is one of 25 amazing photographs that I found on Your Science Blog.  Check out the rest here.

Here in Vermont, as in several other states, we have a nickel deposit on (most) beverage containers.  You pay five cents when you buy your beverage and then get five cents back for redeeming it.  We drink our share of seltzer and soda and beer in our house, and the bottles and cans pile up.  I keep them organized, sorting the glass and plastic and aluminum in bags stored in the garage.  Today I cashed them in.

This isn't my favorite task, but I do take some satisfaction in it.  Not long ago, I would bring the various bags of redeemable containers to a redemption center (say, at a supermarket) and hand them over the counter to a clerk who would toss them into large plastic-bag-lined boxes.  The boxes were labeled with various beverage suppliers, such as Coca Cola or Budweiser.  I imagined that they were taken back the supplier to be recycled.

Now the supermarket has a set of machines that suck in your containers and smashes them.  And I mean smash.  My favorite is the one for glass bottles.  You feed your bottles into a tube-like chamber, rubberish wheels spin to pull it in, a laser scanner reads the bar code, and it gets dropped into the bowels of the machine to be literally smashed.  The glass piles up in a hopper on wheels that gets emptied by a clerk (an associate?) when it is full. 

When a bottle drops in, it gets crushed somehow, mysteriously, and it makes a most satisfying noise.  Sometimes a bottle really pops as it smashes.  It makes me grin, the boy in me remembering how fun it could be to reduce physical things to smaller parts.  The cans and the plastic bottles get smashed as well, but the sound of those squishing is not nearly as satisfying.

We had way too many cans and bottles to redeem.  The wall of the garage was lined a little too deeply.  Since I was running other errands, I had to fit the bags of them in with the standard recycling and the trash.  They sat on the seats and the floor as well as in the back.  At a nickel apiece, it takes, as you know, twenty of them to make a buck.  I got eleven bucks when I cashed in the paper tickets the machine feeds out.

I went straight to the customer service counter to avoid the long Satruday checkout lines.  I handed over my ten tickets with various amounts on them and the clerk/associate/employee/person scanned them (yes, they, too have a bar code) and handed over the cash.  Another guy was at the counter, purchasing lottery tickets, and for a moment I was tempted to buy some.  But that would have been plain old stupid.  All that work sorting and hauling (two trips from the car across the parking lot!) and stuffing and driving to throw it away for a losing lottery ticket?  Luckily, I came to my senses.

The bottle bill, as it is called, has worked to get cans and bottles recycled.  It helps to keep litter away from all kinds of places as well.  In fact, some of the cans (Lablatt Blue) I redeemed were ones I picked up on my walks and runs near home.  I hate to see that crap on the road side, and somebody has to pick it up.  I know I am not making any money at it.  I figure if it takes me even thirty seconds to pick and and deal with a can that scores me five cents, I am making far less than minimum wage.  But I figure it also saves some energy in the long run by getting recycled into a can that would have used far more energy had it been made from raw materials.

So I keep at it.  We already have a couple of bottles in the bag under the sink, the transition zone before the garage.  It may be a couple of months before I bring them in to get the ten cents they are worth, but already I look forward to hearing them get crushed into shards. 

I took a good six mile run this afternoon.  Well, it would have been gooder if I hadn't had that pain in my calf.  I walked a mile to ease it out.  Since I took two days off I figured I would have no pain today.  No such luck.

It was pretty cool out there.  Literally, of course, since the temperature was about 40.  But it was pretty cool weather as well.  The sun busted through at times, but mostly it was cloudy and it snowed like nuts off and on.  On my run I had some sun but it snowed most of the time.  I could see sun shining off in the distance but the snow fell on me. 

For a couple of miles the wind was at my back.  That helped with the leg pain and kept the snow at my back as well.  When I turned east the snow blasted me from the side.  The wind, of course, was blowing like mad.  So for the final stretch I had one cold ear and one warm one, one wet cheek and one dry one.

I love this crazy weather--snow and sun and wind at the same time, cold air and grass busting through the recently thawed dirt.  The snow was really coming down at times but the ground is so warm now that it didn't stay snow once it landed.  Things are wet now. 

The last mile of my run I had the chance to feel and see the snow, to watch kestrals hovering over the soon-to-be green fields.  I was not dressed all that warmly but knowing warm days are soon to be common, I felt warm enough.  I will need to take another day or two off again.  Maybe I will get up early tomorrow and walk to the river to watch the birds.  I think the snow might taper off tonight. 

Litany
by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
—Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.

You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.

When I was in graduate school, one of my professors told me that if we showed him a photograph of ourselves beside John Dewey's grave we would get an A for the class.  Despite that I lived close to Burlington, where his grave rests, I never took him up on that. 

Today I finally got a second chance.  I was one of several counselors to take a group of students on a field trip to see the University of Vermont.  While the students were on a scavenger hunt around campus, one of my colleagues took a photo of me next to John Dewey's grave.

I am guessing it is too late to get that A.  Now that I think of it, I may have gotten an A in that class anyway.

So someone I work with sent me this list of pranks in the workplace on March 31 and I think that some of them are pretty funny.  One of the prank ideas catches my interest enough that I decide to try it the next day.  Apparently, it was a flop.

I am only in the office occasionally these days.  I usually work in schools or from home.  I had to go in the morning of April 1st before driving a bunch of hours to Connecticut for a conference.  I though I was crafty and had some good tools for the prank.  It was going to be great.

I brought in a pair of pants, a pair of shoes and a couple of skinny boards.  I stashed them in a canvas bag and tossed my coat on top.  As soon as I got into the building I went into the one men's rest room that is open to the public.  I arrived just after we opened for business and unloaded my supplies.. 

There is only one stall and I entered it and set things up.  I draped the top of the pants over the toilet seat.  I stuffed the boards into the shoes so they stuck straight up, like mini legs.  Then I stuffed the pant legs over the boards.  When I was done, anyone peeking under the stall would see shoes and pants, as if someone were sitting on the throne.  To complete the gig, I locked the stall door and slid under the stall wall.  Done.

I had that feeling of nerves that comes when trying both to do something sneaky and to keep a secret.  The feeling had not gone away by the time I left the building--in less than an hour I was on my way south on the interstate.  I figured that someone would discover the not-a-person that day, that it would be seen as a prank and that the good-natured side of the organization would win out over the curmudgeonly side.  I was hoping to get a message by phone or email accusing me of the prank, which I planned to eagerly deny, but I got nothing.

I did not hear that day or the next or the next.  Now, over two weeks later, no one has mentioned it.  So I figure one of two things happened:

1. It was discovered, but my colleagues know how much I would relish a response, so they are keeping mum to get their own joke on me.

2. It was discovered by someone who simply disassembled my little mock man and tossed it.

Today I asked one of the individuals, who would likely have been one of the first to know if a prank had occurred, how April Fool's Day was in the office.  She said nothing about my shenanigans.  She either was good at hiding the lie or door number two holds my answer.

If the second scenario does hold true then one of two people likely discovered the goods.  It was either the late night cleaning crew or the security guard doing his evening sweep.  Maybe one of them did discover it and also mentioned it, and everyone else is keeping mum to boot. 
In any case, my guess is that the prank was a flop.  If it did succeed, then the second phase, the joke on me, was equally successful.  Now that i have confessed, anyone who may have been a party to this could pretend he or she has been holding back knowledge, but I fessed up today, and I hope they will too.

Midday sun passes
The vulture's shadow over
Rising daffodils

My wife had to take a bunch of time to day to help with her ailing mother, so I took time off from work to watch the children.  She might have found someone to watch them but that still would have meant organizing and coordinating a bunch, so I just took it on and that made things much easier.

I had no big plans but wound up taking them to the park in Richmond for an awesome day.  I made a couple of calls to get playmates for the kids but nothing got confirmed.  Soon after we got there, however, a few of the unconfirmed friends showed up.  There were a gazillion other kids there as well so it was a blast. 

They climbed on the play structures, swung on the swings, pranced on the outdoor stage, dug in the sand and checked out the river.  We got a bagel and pizza for lunch at the bakery next to the park, and I had a maple latte to start things off.  Except for a minor foot wound (no shoes on at the time) and some minor kid squabbles, all went sparkling.

When we left we took a trip to Paquette's nursery in Richmond.  I inquired about fruit trees, as I would like to plant a couple of apple or pear trees (coming in tonight) and about blueberry bushes (coming in next week) but we drove away with nothing.  While I ordered a load of compost the children played in the toy-laden sand pit on premises.  They were in heaven.

To top it off, we stopped for a creemee on the way home.  It was our first of the the year.  Once we got home I loaded the clothesline with clean laundry.  That was a first for the year as well.  It felt good.  Of course, I hung the laundry after I wiped down the children's hands and faces.  We finished off our ice cream in the car and they made a mess of it.

While I was fixing dinner, a truck arrived with the load of compost.  I was not expecting it until Tuesday so it was a great surprise.  The children immediately began digging in it.  We had a great dinner, made perfect by the fresh chives my daughter thought to add, and sat on the deck watching the waning sunlight.  The kids took showers before dinner (the compost put them over the edge of dirtiness) so we have a some precious play time before before bed. 

It has been a most excellent day. 

Passing over from Huntington to Hinesurg on Texas Hill Road, we met with some mud.  The car slid sideways more than once and bottomed out more than once.  My son kept asking, "What was that?"  I told him every time, as best I could.

Daffodils are blooming by the house.  I have seen them elsewhere but now they are right here, yellow and white.

My children and I planted two types of melons and two types of basil in pots today.  They were most excited about two things:  watering them once the seeds were hidden, and drinking juice with ice.  They started the ice this morning and were pumped to cool things with it this afternoon. 

I watched my child and a friend play together, one with a sled and one with a stroller.  One wore yellow mud boots and the other's feet were bare. 

Pushing the children on the swings "too high" was a highlight today.  They squealed.

Two bluebird called back and forth to one another as we sat on the deck and ate dinner.

Now, the full moon rises over the field.  Its light casts shadows through the window panes onto the floor.  Tonight it will shine on my wife's face as she, finally, rests.

It was another beautiful day here so I had plans to do some garden prep.  Make hay while the sun shines, right?  Actually the forecast calls for sunny days pretty much all week, so I will probably be good for a bunch of days.  I got a good chunk done today.

Our garden is mostly a circle.  The plan calls for three long raised beds in a ring, with breaks between them to walk through.  We only had two of those beds last year.  I just never got to the third one after my dad came up with his rototiller and carved out the first two.  I edged the entire third one today, with the help of my kids.

I am hoping tomorrow to at least bust up the sod for the third bed.  Then I will need to loosen what is left and fill in with compost.  I need to aerate the other two beds as well (got one done today) and boost those two with compost as well.  I busted up a third area today that had been used for flowers in the past.  Nothing grew there last year so that will be the home of our strawberry bed. 

I'll plant some spinach at some point this week, and some flowers.  I'll get the strawberry plants in the ground, too.  I was hoping to plant some more blueberry bushes and some apple trees this week, but those may have to wait.  We'll see how far my ambitious plans take me.  And on the weather.

Last fall we saw a bunch of corn husks stacked up on the beaver's lodge.  We wondered if they had drifted there (seemed iffy) or had been piled on by the beaver.  The corollary question was this:  were the beavers eating the corn? 

I was a doubter.  Beavers eat bark, not corn.  Why the heck would they eat corn instead of wood?  That would be too weird.  Today, however, I discovered that beavers, at least one on the river right here, do indeed eat corn.

I woke early because I heard a bird I had not heard before.  It was loud and singing like nuts outside my window.  I knew I had the choice of a couple more hours of sleep or finding out what the heck was trilling away out there.  Since spring only lasts so long, I opted for the latter.

Of course, by the time I got out there, that bird was silent.  I walked anyway, binoculars at the ready.  As I approached the river, I saw something dark in the corn field.  I thought it might be a turkey, since I had heard a couple in the distance already.  It turned out to be a beaver.

I watched it waddle down the bank of the river, where it left my view.  As I approached, I saw its wet, furry body hunched over munching something.  I got pretty close and then stopped to look at it through the binos.  It was eating the corn.  I watched it peel back the husk and nibble away. 

I checked it out close up, too.  I walked over the bridge and checked out the dropped ear.  It was clean, with large teeth marks on it.  The beaver had indeed been snacking on leftover corn.  I watched the river for a while longer, the huge orange moon setting in the west, the sky glowing in the east.  I saw a kestral, some song sparrows and some other birds, including a couple of turkeys displaying and dueling it out in the woods.

I was doubtful when I considered the idea, but it is for real.  Beavers eat bark, yes, but they apparently take advantage of corn as well.

Last night my mother-in-law died. She was surrounded by several people who loved her, including her wonderful daughter.  Today and in days to come we remember her with love.  We mourn now and celebrate her life.  Thanks, Pam.  We will miss you.

Already I am thinking about mowing the lawn.  I have some markedly mixed feelings about our lawn.  On the one hand, it is a lush and cool place to lie down, to kick around a ball, to set up a reading chair or to just run around.  On the other hand it is a project that demands time, requires a stinky, loud, polluting machine, and offers little for the other creatures with which we share our site.

The grass is tall enough, as of today, that we should cut it.  By "should" I mean that if we do not cut it now, we will also need to rake the clippings when we do cut it.  Either that or have a bunch of dead grass because it can't get enough light.  So get cracking or have more work later.

The problem is that our mower is not yet ready to be used.  It needs a new battery, some spark plugs, a blade sharpening, and an oil change.  So a bunch of work to get the thing ready so we can do a bunch of work.  I still am stuck with Ernest Hebert's line that a lawn is "a make work project."  That it is.

April seems awfully early to be cutting the grass.  But dang, it is tall already.  Cutting before May seems nuts, but raking in May seems also a poor choice.  Heck, I do not want to do either, but it has begun, I am afraid.  So I will take care of the lawnmower when I get to it and pull it out of the garage when I get to it.

I know we can use a reel mower.  We have one, and we use it for parts of the lawn.  We will bust that out first.  The lawn is too big to get it all done with that thing, however.  At least, we are choosing to use our time for other things. 

We are slowly reducing the lawn's size, by increasing our garden's scope and by simply letting some of it go.  I would like to dig up a bunch of turf and plant wildflowers, but that, too, takes time and work.  I just need to decide where to devote the time, and how much of it to devote to this make work project.

DUST

It takes thirty years to accumulate an inch of soil.
If you stood still, stopped moving right now,
what year would it be when you disappeared under dirt?

With every breath we breathe in particles:
spider legs, marmot hair, salt from breaking waves.
If your lungs failed to filter,
how soon would you be filled with dust?

Mountains keep pushing upward,
shrugging sand from their shoulders.
Oceans and deserts open their arms.
Oceans and deserts are filled with mountains.

You know we will become dust.
The wind will lift us and scatter us
and we will become rainbow trout, sesame seeds, birch trees.
We will become the heart of snow.

You keep moving until summer haze reddens the sun.
You pause to look, the broom light in your hands.
Do you think to ask who it is you are sweeping?

I have never felt that I am very good at dealing with grief.  It is easy to say "I'm sorry" when someone dies.  That is what is supposed to say, after all.  But when someone close to me dies, what then?

I have done what I can to be supportive of my wife, my father-in-law, and others, but I feel like I am fumbling.  Maybe everyone feels that way.  Anyone who is good at dealing with death, I suppose, has dealt with too much of it.  I, too, am sad, and I am figuring it out as I go.

I say what seems right at the time, which often is nothing.  I take care of the children so my wife has one less thing to worry about.  I keep a good attitude.  I remember to enjoy the beauty of the world.  I make dinner.

What else is there to do?  We need to go on, don't we?  Things change when someone close dies, but many things keep happening as they have.  The daffodils keep blooming.  The grass gets taller.  The beavers keep trying to slow down the river.  Our children laugh at the wind blowing a balloon around. 

We wake each day.  We brush our teeth and put on shoes and eat breakfast, if we are lucky.  I am fortunate and I know it.  Despite such loss, the world is wonderful.  It is, however, more difficult to see the wonder right now.  The hardest part is that we have one fewer person with which to share our wonder. 

Praying

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

-Mary Oliver

This morning I arrived at the high school where I was scheduled to meet students and the word had already gotten to the guidance office that my step-mother had died.  They were sad for me and I even got an emotional embrace.  I appreciated that they cared enough to say something.  One of them, after I told her that I kept myself busy with gardening projects this past week, said that she finds gardening to be one of the best healing activities.

Human beings have comforted themselves for generations with the thought that death arrives but life continues.  Gardening--nurturing seeds and soil to grow plants--helps one see that life does go on, and that its beauty is there for us if we are willing to look.  Watching new life appear and then grow helps us see the miracle that life is, and to appreciate our own lives.

At least it does if we are willing to see that.  I don't mean to be trite, but looking at the life that blooms in spring, and seeing that death is a part of life, is one of the most powerful things I know.  I can't help but be amazed at how life resurfaces after the cold and ice of winter.  Choosing seeds and planting them, caring for them and reaping their fruits, being active in the process rather than passive--all that just dazzles me.

Right now it has indeed helped me in dealing with death.  The children helped me tuck seeds into potting soil and toss around compost.  They have helped water the strawberries and watched carefully as I removed blueberry bushes from pots to sink into the earth.  Having them with me has made these actions doubly valuable, as their lives are so new and have so much promise. 

I still have much I want to do.  I wanted to plant spinach and to spread some more compost on the beds I created last year.  I've still got time.  My parents visited these past couple of days and gave us a new tree to plant.  It apparently will have purple blossoms.  I need to figure out where to plant that and then do so.  I will continue to get my hands dirty, through summer and fall, in attempts to see plants offer their flowers and their food. 

I have much to learn, and healing yet to do.

I spent the day at a high school today after over a week off from work.  I had to put in a little time, partly to get ready for today, but mostly I thought little about work.  I did not have the most productive day today, but I am back in.

It has been an odd week for sure.  Losing my mother-in-law has been surreal.  it really does not feel real in some ways.  I have gone stretches where I have not seen her, but now I will never see her again.  She simply isn't around.  And she will no longer be around.

I spent lots of time with my children and that has connected us even more.  That came about because my wife had to spend so much time with her dying mother.  So good stuff comes out of it all.  That is the way, is it not? 

It seem impossible not to sound sappy or to say something that is new or that hasn't been experienced.  I have nothing new to offer.  Billions of people have died.  Billions of people have survived those deaths.  We make it through.  It sucks, but we make it through.

So I dive back into work (assuming I can navigate the technology of my new laptop without too much effort), I run in the mornings, I garden when I can.  I try to support my wife and hope she gets what she needs.  I wake and smile at the day.