Cheryl Butts In: Pt. 4 - Hope SPRINGs Eternal

"Winter is not a season, it's an occupation.” 
                                                     ----Sinclair Lewis

At the risk of sounding cliché, I am celebrating the (almost) arrival of spring.  

I know that you in the southern climes will begin to post your fabulous first-buds-of-spring photos very soon, and I wanted to offer up my experiences also.  So, this Sunday morning I dressed up the dog and we strolled about the neighborhood, capturing the images that sum up the wonderful phenomena that is ‘almost spring’. 

This is the flower bed that runs alongside my front sidewalk.  Isn’t it beautiful?
The grass has that brownish tone that can only be accomplished by being suffocated with the weight of snow for at least 700 days.  Maybe 800. 

This is my view as I maneuver the dog along the welcoming sidewalks:

And this is the view after locating that last piece of remaining black ice on said sidewalk:

But we found many delights, just awaiting our admiration.  The river, before the leaves block our view: 

Graffiti art:

This unit just waiting for the first actual warm (translation:  above 40°F) day to peel back its roof and take a day trip to the local wineries:

My front porch is getting a makeover next weekend, to remove the winter sentiments that were so lovingly placed there in early December, before we became Winter Zombies.

I will finally be able to put these away:

(Danni isn’t the only one with hoseable shoes. These actually need a good hosing.)

It’s not to say that during winter we are zombies every single day.   The best party I ever attended was held at an “ice fishing festival”, in a beer tent, in Michigan, in January.  

I purchased the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy in the fall to occupy us on that ‘quiet winter day’.  I did not experience a ‘quiet winter day’, those are fictional in my world.  However, we did get this built, to facilitate the absolutely necessary new semi-ginormous tv:

Fact:  most professionally built entertainment centers hold an extraordinary amount of VHS tapes, DVD’s, and CD’s. It all gets so comfy and tucked away that it is not until you build one with more visible storage options that all those forms of media must be reviewed for purging.  I can tell you with absolute honesty that a half dozen of my ‘quiet winter days’ were spent sorting through all of that to determine what got the boot.  Ex-haus-ting.

The first warm days of the year spark a natural response in pets to DROP ALL YOUR FUR, RIGHT NOW!  I will be spending a lot of time with the Dyson in the coming weeks.  Like their human counterparts, pets get cranky from their winter incarceration.   Today’s view, around the water cooler:

(That ain’t a display of tolerance.) 

It’s only a matter of weeks until I can enjoy a vision like this in my backyard:

My hat is off to Danni, my hostess, who spent most of her winter doing manual labor to make a house into a home.  Rock on, Danni & Sam (and, of course, Suzan & John in Montreal as well as Andi and Phil in Illinois).  Thanks again for letting me share.