auspicious day

April 7th was an auspicious day for Bella and aside from a brief congratulation her birthday was forgotten. There were no extra bones, nor any slabs of luscious meat. Her 10th birthday with no celebration!

Bella is a little more grey in the muzzle but still leaps and jumps and runs like a much younger dog. Joie de vivre still shines in her eyes.

Wednesday we almost sold the house and moved south... the snow was coming down hard, obliterating all signs of spring. The robins trudged through the snowbanks looking for food and the dogs barely stuck their noses out the door. WOE.

Thankfully by Thursday afternoon the snow had stopped, but it kept raining which made for a dreary drive into town to celebrate my brother Graham's birthday. I was 15 1/2 when he was born - I remember one night my parents were out really late and Graham had colic - I walked and walked and walked with him in my arms. I would never have imagined then that he'd be a 6'+ man.

Friday night we went to a neighbour's house to help them tend the evaporators that were boiling down the maple sap. It was hard work watching Leo toil! The second boiling was in Leo's giant workshop full of tools, tractors and other 4 wheeled vehicles. The wind was jamming a percussion jazz beat on the huge garage doors while the woodwinds whistled through the eves.  Propane tanks fired the burner in the shop. We had some chairs and a little table topped with special cheeses and Trudie's homemade bread. Outside was another shack with a wood fired stove topped with a large stainless steel tray that buckets of sap were carefully poured. It was a fun, and rather late, night!

It is sunny but still cool today – the robins are hopping around on the brown grass, perhaps with new hope in their red breasts.

“A Robin said: The Spring will never come,
And I shall never care to build again.
A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome,
My sap will never stir for sun or rain.
The half Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow,
I neither care to wax nor care to wane.
The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago,
Because earth's rivers cannot fill the main. —
When Springtime came, red Robin built a nest,
And trilled a lover's song in sheer delight.
Grey hoarfrost vanished, and the Rose with might
Clothed her in leaves and buds of crimson core.
The dim Moon brightened. Ocean sunned his crest,
Dimpled his blue, yet thirsted evermore.”

~Christina Rossetti