When Reed woke from napping and the sun cooled, my bare-legged baby and I took to the streets, pacifier, keys, and tree manual in hand.  I can’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon.  While we were out learning to spot hawthorns, black ash, and red river birch, we checked in on some Juneberry trees that live along the river (number 40).  The berries have formed, now.  They are plump and green and will soon be rosy.  My mouth was watering at the thought of that magical moment they turn sweet purple.  Oh, how I love Juneberries!

In fact, signs of summer’s fruits were all over our little river trail.  There were healthy canes of flowering blackberries and tiny green clusters of unripe wild grapes.   Maybe one of these days, I’ll go out and pick the grape leaves and preserve them to make dolma.  It sure seems like a lot of work, though.  Maybe I’ll make a project of it next year.

It has been a perfect spring.  There’s no doubt about it.  And all the plants and creatures seem to be bright, happy, and ready for the heat of summer.  Including me.  And that’s good, because the heat of summer is here.

Today, to avoid yesterday’s lethargy, I thought through the order of my day.  I opened the windows when I woke, and Reed and I went out before the sun got to high to water the garden.  The cold water felt good on my feet.  I closed all but the north-facing blinds when we got back inside, and put Reed down for a nap in front of the fan.  The high today is only 77 F, but that is hot for three north-blooded people in May.  And I’m loving it.  Summer, we are ready!

In September, I bought a plum tree.  It was 50% off, and not in the best shape.  An older man helped me bring it to my little car, and, me being eight months pregnant, neither of us had the mobility to get it situated well in the trunk.  We broke a bunch of branches in the process.  But I was so proud of that tree.  When I got home, I pulled out a shovel and shoveled and shoveled in my blue maternity dress and black boots.  I shoveled as best I could, though the hole probably should have been deeper and wider.  And planting plum trees in autumn can be a bit sketchy in Wisconsin regardless.  If their first winter is a harsh one, they can die.

But I planted it, and I was proud.  I wanted to plant a tree the autumn that my son was born.

I cheered this March when I saw the new growth.  It wasn’t dead!  It was alive!  And today, I woke to find new buds on its branches.

Isn’t spring lovely?  Things like this make me feel very glad.  A world where a plum tree can sleep through the winter and spring to life again one April is a life where good things are still possible and miracles still happen.

When we moved to Stoughton this August, the river by our house was busy with a big gaggle of geese. I loved to watch them swim and rest on the riverbanks. There was one goose amongst these wild Canada geese that wasn’t like the others. It was a barn goose, plump and grey with a bright orange bill, always close to her wild mate. As the other geese began to fly north, I wondered what would happen to this goose. Geese mate for life. Could she fly? Would she fly? Would her partner leave her behind? Their numbers dwindled until it was just the two of them sitting by the icy water. And then the temperatures dropped and I did not see them.

Today, Reed and I went walking by the river, and we saw the barn goose and her mate swimming with the ducks. It warmed my heart to see them, still alive, still together. It made me feel good about the world to know that a Canada goose would rather spend a cold Wisconsin winter with his mate than a warm, sunny one without her.

What a wonderful planet this can be.

photo of me and t. reed by aunt gretchen

“But here I am in my life, and I know I am not here as a representative white male American human, nor are the birds and animals and plants here as representatives of their sex or species.  We all have our ways, forms, and habits.  We all are what we are partly because we are here and not in another place.  Some of us are mobile; some of us (such as the trees) have to be content merely to be flexible.  All of us who are mobile are required by happenstance and circumstance and accident to make choices that are not instinctive, and that force us out of categories into our lives here and now.  Even the trees are under this particularizing influence of place and time.  Each one, responding to happenstance and circumstance and accident, has assumed a shape not quite like that of any other tree of its kind.  The trees stand rooted in their mysteriously determined places, no place quite like any other, in strange finality.  The birds and animals have their nests in holes and burrows and crotches, each one’s place a little unlike any other in the world- and so is the nest my mate and I have made”

-Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle

In the morning when the sun is new, and the hot air still feels a little fresh, I like to make my way to the kitchen and put the kettle on.

It was cold, and our little rented cabin in Door County was filled with friends whose camping adventures had been rained out.

This spring is a beautiful one.

I hadn’t been quite myself.

Outside our bedroom window are the leaves of a tall tree. As I write this morning, three small sparrows are gnawing on its tough, red berries. I tried a small bite of one once. It was tasteless and bitter, probably poisonous. It makes me happy to see the birds enjoy them. It makes me happy to feel well, again, after a day and a half in bed and a week of being lethargic. Much gratitude to Adam for being the sweetest nurse in the world. Nothing like a bout of sickness to restore one’s enthusiasm. Kids are good at that, too. And sunshine after a rainy spell. And girl talk. And a listening to a good lecture of sorts. And a good, long breeze.

I had a dream about a breeze last night. It was a lovely dream. Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.

What are other things that restore your enthusiasm?

A man came into the shop, yesterday.