Today it was so blatantly Spring that even the dirt could be heard singing. Huck and I drove into town to go the feed shop for horse bedding and sheep vaccinations [where I resisted for the third week to buy spring chicks], then stopped to do our weekly shippings and then onto the grocery store for a quick shop of essential food. As I walked into the grocery store, one of the regular employees , who is mentally challenged, greeted me at the door by stating "It's Spring! And the flowers are springing!" And then he laughed, and I laughed, and the more he laughed, the more I laughed. Two kindred self entertaining units, we enjoyed the moment. He also told me in a much more serious tone that the flowers like spring because they get hurt when they are in the dirt too long, which seemed like a very wise observation. This encounter, though brief, was one of the bright spots in the day. But there have been so many - like watching Huck's lips flap in the wind as we drove home with his head out the window. Between watching that in my rear view mirror while watching the coastal range out the front window, all the while listening to the new Ray Davies cd [loudly], well, spring had definatly sprung for this old farm girl and her hound dog.
Getting home, I was pleased that my temporary -monkey-cross- fencing in the yard area had held up, and there wasn't a flock of sheep meeting me on the main road. Yes, you people that know me or read this journal regularly know that I have supernatural skills building "monkey houses'. If you don't know what a monkey house is, you must first read some former posts on them [visit the December 12, 2005 entry]- but this picture is a perfect example of cross fencing done the 'monkey house' way. I wanted the sheep to mow down the grass in about an acre of property that is between our barns and house, and give them some nice lush grass to eat as the pastures are bare, or just sprouting. I had just enough pasture fence to get from the vegetable bed door to the other pasture fence, about 40 feet, but had to come up with ways to hold the fence up, since I had no posts there. So, my monkey-house-fence consists of a garbage can with wire strung to the fence and a ladder stuck in the fence, and some sticks and wire and wire around the sticks attached to the ladder. It works. I don't think it would make Martha Stewart's 'it's a good thing' list, but then again, none of this farm would [and for the record, I have nothing against Martha Stewart and consider her a genius in styling and propping a 'mythical life'].
I spent the rest of the afternoon cutting some teasel weed, which I'm determined to sell to the dry floral market. It has to be stripped of it's thorns, and is labor intensive. We have tons of it, and it is considered a weed of course, but like an artichoke or thistle has such magnificence and stamina, how can anyone not want it all year in a vase filled with yarrows or other dead weeds?
So, that is all. It is warm, it is windy.
It is Spring.
