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The Joys and Sorrows of Spring
The Joys and Sorrows of Spring
It never fails to amaze me how fast winter changes to spring. Exactly a week ago I took pictures of the branch tips of the two post oaks that are right outside my living room as these are usually the first around my house to get leaves. Seven days ago there was only a small amount of swelling in the branch tips. As I sit here today, I see the tips of blooms starting to emerge.
The weekend before last, my husband and I cleaned up around our ranch gate, digging up and discarding yuccas that had over-multiplied, and mowing the tall grass stems so we could make way for the bluebonnets to take center stage. Just now I walked down there and the bluebonnet plants are twice as tall as they were last week. My husband tells me the roadsides in McMullen County are already thick with bluebonnets. I think we may have the first good wildflower season here in a few years.
A couple of months ago, I joined a Temperature Quilt-Along. This is where you select different colored fabrics to represent temperature ranges, then cut two patches for every day of a year-one for the high temperature, and one for the low. I sincerely hope that last year was an anomaly, but nonetheless made my quilt plans with last year in mind. Did y'all know we had nearly half of the days of last year fall within the five degree range of 85 to 89? Another third of the year was between 90 and 104! That sounds like a really boring quilt if I went with the original plan of five degree increments, so I dusted off my old statistics concepts and broke things up a bit better. In the ranges where the overwhelming majority of our temperatures fall in a year's time, between 70 and 100, I made two degree ranges, leaving the rest in five degree ranges.
I had planned to piece one month at a time at the end of the month, but all this analysis and thinking meant it took me longer than it should have to get things set up. I now have my colors, ranges, and fabrics ready to go, so I should be ready to do both January and February soon.
As exciting as spring is with all the new growth and being able to comfortably be outside more (I am sitting on my front porch smelling the perfume of agarita in the air), I always feel something like apprehension, or maybe impending doom, in the spring. It is almost like I cannot enjoy spring for dreading the hot, hot days of summer. I am even feeling a bit down about the increasing length of daytime. I'm perfectly find until spring equinox, then the days just get too long for me and throw off my timing on everything, not to mention allowing several more hours of scorching sunlight. Then there is the infernal Changing of the Clocks looming. Now I know some of you, maybe many, are the complete opposite of me-dreading the onset of winter and coming back to life in the spring as the days get longer. But really, it matters not at all what we prefer; the seasons just keep marching on. Happy spring to you! <SpringCreekArtsGuild@gmail.com>