Well, we made it through February. For such a short month, it can sometimes pack a punch. Like this year, wasn’t it ever cold and snowy? We’ve gotten off easy the last few years, but this February was kinda like the winters of old.
Then, poof! The cold and snow ended and the temperatures got up into the 30’s. Felt almost balmy. We hit 40 one day last week. I saw a gal wearing sandals! Jumping the gun, in my opinion, but whatever floats your boat, right?
On my morning walk, the birds are getting frisky, you can tell, singing away. As Charlie shared last week, the woodpeckers are making a racket. Turns out, some of that drumming on the trees is their mating call. Not exactly “Strangers in the Night” to my ears, but I’m not a woodpecker.
Along with the melting snow, the surest sign of spring: Vi Paradis has put out her flowers. She does this every year, and it always raises my spirits. See, Vi sticks fake flowers in the snowbanks and wires them onto the shrubs. Always yellow, bright and hopeful. One day, they appear, like magic. Last year, we didn’t have snow banks, so she just did the shrubs. It’s kinda like that gal’s sandals; these women are trying to “manifest” spring, as my niece Caitlin would say. Hey, someone’s gotta do it.
All these signs of spring make those lingering Christmas wreaths all the more jarring. For the love of God, people! That holiday’s over! Do your duty, get off your butts and throw those dry things with the wilted bows onto the trash heap.
Speaking of things that should be thrown out. Do you remember the creepy monkey I told you about? (Here’s a link to that blog, if you want the whole story.) Crib notes: there’s creepy monkey, with real fur, perched on a mailbox along my walking route. The kind of thing that looks like it’s going to come alive in the middle of the night and eat your young.
The creepy monkey is at the house of this young couple from away. One morning, I saw the dad out there, and I ask (’cause I couldn’t help myself), “What’s up with the monkey?”
“I don’t know,” he chuckles. “We just like monkeys.”
Not enough to put the thing out of its misery, apparently. Because a year and a half later, that monkey has gone from creepy to pitiful. It has green moss growing on it, for God’s sake! It so gross, I have to avert my eyes, like when I pass a smooshed squirrel on the road. Trouble is, if I look away from the monkey abomination, I see the Christmas wreath on their door!
Charlie says it may be time to leave them a neighborly note. I’m considering it.
Well, that’s it for now. Catch you on the flip side!
Hear Ida Tell It: Spring’s Around the Corner