This past winter’s labors were light by any standard.

The fresh bag of snow melt, opened late last year and used only a handful of times, yearns to understand its neglect.

The snow shovels still propped against the tool shed yawn from boredom as if to say, “Put us away for another season already!”

The still naked deciduous peer down on the dry ground, look up at the cloudy, ambivalent sky waiting for something wet to fall.

Stripped and cut branches hang out along fences’ edges, serving as a playground for bored cats and reminder of yard work yet to be done.

Spring’s labors are but a compensation for winter’s idle, cold, dryness, a reaction to last year’s inattention to detail and order and beauty. Continue reading →