Spring is Here!

Here’s how I know. 

1.      We’re having more warm days than cold. Thank heavens.

2.   Birds are flying all around the outside of the house and the inside, too. I can’t keep the bird feeders filled fast enough; fill it one day and it’s empty the next. Mostly we have sparrows (or wrens, hard to tell the difference), bluebirds (my favorites) and a few red headed house finches. Front yard, back yard, they’re all over the place. Inside the house, Charlie flies back and forth in front of the window to show the bluebirds that he, too, is a bird and can fly. He sits in the window and chatters to them all morning long.

3.  Butterflies are coming back. We have big black and yellow (possibly monarchs) that come to a bush right in front of the window by the kitchen table in the summer. They’re starting to come back now that it’s warmer. They fill my heart with joy as much as my bluebirds do.

4.  This is a rural area and every road has fields and ponds at almost every house. The fields are now plowed and about half have been planted. Corn seems to be a popular crop this year. Across the street from us, there’s a field I see when I sit here at the computer. It has been plowed, but not yet planted. Every year gives us a chance to guess what will grow this year. Last year was peanuts, the year before was tobacco. This year, time will tell. For now, geese, ducks, and other birds are having a ball landing in the field and swimming in the adjoining pond. There’s always something going on outside.

5. The state is slowly opening up. Yesterday we actually went to a restaurant at noon, went inside believe it or not, and sat at a table and got waited on! It was so nice not to go through a drive thru and eat in the car while juggling food on our laps and being able to move only a few inches to get to our drinks in the console cups. We could not believe how pleasant it was to go in a restaurant and eat, something we used to take for granted.

6.  My sister has gone back to her home, so Stewart and I are now enjoying life as a married couple. Of course, spring has nothing to do with that, “young” love is alive and well any time of the year.

Quote of the Day: God's in His heaven - All's right with the world! Robert Browning

Are you Bored Yet?

How are you all doing with this forced time for yourself? Are you bored with yourself yet?

For the last month I’ve had the perfect time for writing, but, alas, I’ve only written 1300 words on my latest novel. At this rate, I’ll be writing this book for the next two years! And, as you can see, it’s been over a month since my last blog in which I wrote about marrying Stewart. We’ve been newlyweds over five weeks now, but no writing.

For a positive spin on this coronavirus isolation, my sister Donna arrived just before our wedding planning to visit for a week or so, and, lo and behold, she’s still here because it’s not safe for her to go back to Fairfield, CT where there’s a heavy concentration of the virus. She’s in the high-risk category being that she’s over eighty and has diabetes so staying here is her best bet. Stewart and I are not arguing about it!

The two of us some years ago

So here we sit, three old people with lots of time on our hands and no place to go. For all the time Donna’s been here, we could have taken her to Mt. Airy, the beach at Wilmington, Kitty Hawk, any number of places she’s never been to, but no, we just sit here and look at each other. I will say, this is the most time Donna and I have spent together since she got married in 1958 and we’re enjoying it. At times nerves get a little frayed, but then we’re sisters and that happens. I’m truly going to miss her when the time comes for her to go back home.

Our younger days

Speaking of going/coming home, my bluebirds are back! They’ve been very busy going in and out of the birdhouses on the porch and every time they come around, Charlie, my parakeet flies to the window to watch them, talk with them, and show them that he, too, can fly, albeit inside the house. 

So there’s some semblance of normalcy during our quarantine. Thank heavens the bluebirds haven’t been quarantined!

Quote of the Day: Isolation is a way to know ourselves. Franz Kafka