Seasonal Firsts

Nosegays! The early warm weather teaser we'll call spring resulted in earlier-than-normal emergence of flowers, so I clipped a few before they got frozen. It's starting to be difficult to tell various nosegays apart, but I still can't help but get a little lift from their presence. So documentation may continue.

In other news, the fucking varmints are trying to set up house under my shed again. Last year's skunk odor is still there, and I think there was a family of raccoons under there at some point too. So this is a quick attempt at fortification, which was thwarted and then re fortified with my three watchers (who also, conveniently, are quite heavy and holding down the discarded refrigerator shelf that is acting as a digging deterrent). So far so good.

Now on to yard matters. Crap. I think the neighbors are a little fed up. But lawn care? Meh...who needs it.
 

Whenever I have time to mow, the conditions aren't right (i.e., it's raining, dark or cold), and now I have a cold, so it's just not happening this weekend. Sorry neighbors. Dandelions are good for the soil. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Even though I feel like a complete slug, I baked some soda bread, chocolate bran muffins and a loaf of whole wheat raisin bread. In between rising and baking, I dozed, so it all worked out.

I thought my oven was out of whack, because my past two attempts at soda bread were kind of underdone in the middle, and that's after cooking way past the recipe's recommended bake time. So I bought an oven thermometer. The oven is fine, so it must just be me. This time I split the dough into two smaller loaves and it worked out better.

Earlier in the month we also took our first kayak trip down the river. In March! Unheard of. Check it out -- shorts, despite the fact that there are no leaves on the trees yet and there's still snow on the snowboarding hill in Algonquin.

The day after we floated under this trestle, it collapsed! Yikes.

I was also in the annual St. Patty's Day parade, and this year part of it assembled on my street. It's always an interesting day when the cavalry is in front of your house, no?

I may have mentioned (or maybe I didn't) that Facebook seems to be sapping my blogging muse. Not sure what to do about that. Live with it I guess. My other writing outlet (book reviews) is commencing, but of course much more slowly. And that's OK, because if I were prolific, I might have to identify a point to it all. And, like this picture of "wind art" in a spider web, I don't think there really is one.