There’s something in the air here in Beautiful West Michigan. Ahhh that smells good. The smell of Bear Swamp (where our yard is located) coming alive with froggies and toadies and buggies galore. The smell of daffodils daffodilling, the smell of rain just before a thunderstorm. And there’s free music too!! Birds of all kinds singing and talking to each other: red winged blackbirds, cardinals, ducks, geese, even sea gulls.

Oh wait!!

Question: Why do seagulls fly over the sea??

Answer: Because if they flew over the bay, they’d be called baygulls!!

But would they be delicious??  I’ve often snarfed bagels and they were truly delicious.   Perhaps we could smear some cream cheese on their baygull wings and munch on them while they struggle to get free so they can snatch french fries left in burger joint parking lots!  No.. I think that could give us a bad case of feathermouth.  Not to mention it wouldn’t be very kind to the seagulls or even the baygulls!!

Anyway, there I was during the last few weeks, 676 ft above sea level (I looked up our elevation), minding my own business, when big rains came to melt the last of the snow piles, and then the creeks and rivers were swollen but no flooding yet and oh jeez here comes more rain and now the water is very big and oh POOP the basement is leaking from under the floor again but we get that almost every year but it is still a pain in the hiney, butt that’s what we get for choosing a house in the swamp with an 83 year old basement that was never free of cracks so the water rises up through the floor but yes we have a sump pump and no the previous owners never did (what the HECK did they do with all the water??) and oh God oh God the lilac leaves are getting as big as a mouse’s ear and that means it’s time to plant peas and soon potatoes and onions but right now we’re busy helping our new furry feline friends get acclimated to their new home and I can’t believe one of them spent nearly 2 years in the shelter and HOLY COW I BETTER QUIT WITH THIS RUN-ON SENTENCE AWREDDY!!

Wow.  That was a big one!!

So this boy is a bit behind with preparing the garden for planting. And doing other Spring things. You know, like making. Sentence Fragments. Which make reading. Clunky. But you know, I’ve learned the hard way not to make plans for my free time these days, because things rarely work out as planned. And why should they?? If we are needed, we are needed. We are very fortunate humans and the very least we can do is give back some of our time to others who are not able to do for themselves. Someone very wise once told me, “if you want to make your Creator laugh, just mention you have plans.”

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised… this happens every year. I usually have everything planted in the garden by Memorial Day or very shortly thereafter. I remember dreaming once that after I retired I’d have lots more time to get things done at home. Ha ha!!  This is now a funny joke!!  I can still hear what those old farts would say:  “Now that I’m retired, I don’t know how I ever had time to go to work!!”  Ain’t it the truth!!  So now I have less money, but more time. Oh but hey!! I’ve heard it said that time is money. So maybe if I have more time, I can cash it in for big dollars!

In the meantime, I’ll work very hard at remaining grateful. Life really is very good here in Bear Swamp!

For this week’s videos, here are some characters enjoying one of my favorite times of the year.  I’m sure you’ll agree that the cartoons are an exact depiction of what springtime is all about!!