Notes from the Spring Creek Arts Guild

I have had the windows open most of the day today, despite the fact that the temperature got into the upper eighties. I also left the front door open while I was in the kitchen, which my dogs love. They love being able to hang out on the front porch or front yard and amble into the house to check on me whenever they please. I came around the corner from the living room to check something I had in the oven and encountered a chicken who had just stepped off the inside door mat onto the kitchen floor. She quickly went back outside.

I wish we had more days of open-windows weather. Oh, I know that I could just leave the windows open all summer. In fact I have lived in multiple houses in Texas that had no air conditioning, but thankfully not in many years. Open-window weather, to me, would top out at about 85 degrees.

This weather also has me once again thinking that I need to set up a sewing machine inside the barn so I can open the doors at both ends and sew in the (early) spring breeze. I have a couple of treadle machines that I have not taken the time to properly learn to run, so maybe this is the time to start.

The bluebonnet plants have started growing bigger, and the branch tips on the trees are swelling. The agarita is blooming, and some of the brush is starting to put on tiny, bright green leaves. It seems early to me, but I have gone back through the pictures I take every year of the first signs of spring, and I see most of them have been taken in the last few days of February. This makes me feel a little better.

As much as I am enjoying these first hints of spring, I always have a sinking feeling this time of year. After last year’s brutal summer, the sinking feeling this year is feeling very heavy. At least this year we have had more rain over the fall and winter. Would it not be wonderful to have a cooler and wetter than average summer for a switch?

There is truly nothing any of us can do about the weather, so my best solution is to make the most of every day that I get. Right now, that means I will take a little late afternoon walk to enjoy that golden light I am seeing outside. Then, I will come back in and get back to work on sewing some clothes for the coming season.