Spring Is Blossoming Out All Over

Last Friday night, the first day of Spring, Gerald and I experienced the awakening as we drove down to Union County amid the white blossoming pear trees, tulip trees already shedding their pink blossoms, yellow forsythia, and golden daffodils in yards and roadsides.

We went early to have time before we met his brothers and wives, so he could take me up to Hamburg Hill again in Shawnee National Forest. I had taken the wrong turn with Samuel the week before and missed it. I wondered if it were a good thing. When Gerald and I went up, I knew I had been fortunate to miss the right road. The road was rough and I think if I had gotten as far as Hamburg, I might have been foolish enough to try to drive to the top of Atwood Hill, where the fire tower was. Gerald started also but soon turned around in a road so narrow that I closed my eyes and clinched my fists—even though I knew with my mind that he would make the turn safely. Somehow my stomach did not know this.

Although the grass was greening, the forest itself was still stark trees with leafless limbs—still beautiful in their abundance up and down the steep hills, but not yet breathtaking as they will be when the leaves come back. We were looking for the cut in the forest where the old road used to go. We did find the cut and the pioneer cemetery. We then explored another narrow road through the forest to the top of the hill, where other explorers had left behind their beer cans and trash. There was plenty of turn around room here, and after walking around a bit, we headed on to Fox Hollow for fish with the brothers and sisters-in-law.

This is definitely the time for seeing the countryside. Each day is greener and different as new plants come from the ground. I was able to carry in sweet-smelling hyacinths for the women from church who gathered at our house on Monday evening. I only picked two for each table because it was Gerald’s bulb garden he planted last year, and I did not want to have it too barren when he returns from his birthday trip to Georgia.

I had forgotten he had planted one yellow and one white daffodil there, so I was richer in daffodils than I thought. Each plant had three blossoms, and I picked one yellow and one white to stick in a tall narrow vase. I resisted the urge to pick a fifth hyacinth to go with the two daffodils for a table in the living room.

I had put out the elaborately painted eggs that my friend Jane Perr made years ago. She had learned the craft from an elderly gentleman from the Russian Orthodox Church in Royalton. So I invited Jane down to our meeting, so she could see I was still enjoying her beautiful eggs. She surprised me by bringing me another beautiful egg in its own little holder and also a purple hyacinth that completed the daffodils just the way I wanted the vase to look.

Today after eight hours sleep, I came out of my bedroom at 10 a.m. with the idea I’d walk down the lane to the mail box to get the newspaper that Gerald always walks down for at 6 or 7 a.m. I was somewhat startled to see daughter Jeannie walking out of the other bedroom.

“When did you get here?” I queried. “I figured you’d be driving back today. How did you get in the house?”

Evidently shortly after I went to bed at 2 a.m., Jeannie and Cecelie had arrived from Nashville to our dark house. When we built this house, we gave each of our children a key, but no one seems to remember that they have one. We, of course, leave the door open for them when we know they are coming. Fortunately, one of Jeannie’s kids had found her key and wanted to know what to do with and she had told them to put it in the van. So they had let themselves in and we all slept peacefully, and I got a report on her visit with Leslie as we ate a bite of breakfast.

Much too soon, we had a late lunch and she and Cecelie were off to Freeport although they planned a drop-in visit with her sister Katherine in town before they got back on I-57 to head home.

Cecelie had enjoyed a piece of left-over angel food cake from our women’s meeting, and I put another in a plastic bag for her to take on her trip–along with the left-over chocolate eggs that I knew I should not eat.

As I followed them outside to wave reluctant goodbyes, our eyes focused on the ornamental tree in the driveway’s circle, which is just starting to bloom. Jeannie commented on how she enjoyed our spring down here and in Nashville knowing it will still be three or four weeks before the trees blossom up north. So she will do spring twice.

When Gerald phoned later, he told me that it was chilly in Georgia. Nevertheless, he and Vickie and her mother Shirley, Geri Ann, Tara, Aidan, and baby Maddux were all heading out to the softball stadium at the University of Georgia to support Gerry and the Dogs, now ranked 7th in the nation again. They were to play Mercer. I read tonight it had rained but didn’t rain the game out, which was good since we won.

However, the inclement weather at Waco did cause a postponement of the A&M game with Baylor until April 29. I had to laugh when Erin blogged about the tailgate party last Saturday night for the team, friends, family, staff, and Sugar Daddies. The Broussard family had generously supplied an abundant supply of crawfish. Erin had to fess up, that as an out-of-state girl without crawfish in her menu background, she was grateful for the table laden with desserts.

Since Gerald took the car on his trip, I drove the pickup over to a small-group meeting at our village church. I stopped at the end of the lane and finally picked up this morning’s newspaper.