Spring Has Sprung
And, I Couldn’t Be Happier
Oh, hallelujah, spring has sprung! The cold, gray, gloomy days of winter are no more. The birds are singing, seedlings are popping up all over, the sun is caressing our hemisphere in its warm, loving embrace, baseball season has started, all is right with the world.
Okay, maybe not that last thing. The world is still terribly messed up. But, I do not want to write about that today.
It is true I am not an optimistic person by nature, but if there is ever a time of year when my bright, sunny alter ego bubbles closer to the surface, it is spring. You can call me Mr Optimism. For now.
Where I live, spring is the best time of year. Well, fall is pretty nice, too. The problem with fall, though, is that it comes with a seasonal Sword of Damacles. I can’t help but think of the cold, dreary, gloomy winter hanging over my head. I am unable to enjoy fall in the same way as spring.
My wife also loves spring. She likes nothing better than puttering around in the yard, clearing away the ugly debris of winter, planting new plants and seeds, getting her hands in the dirt, and making our backyard into a lovely garden oasis.
I help out a little bit, here and there. I dig holes, move heavy stuff around, and I am an excellent raker and weeder, if I do say so myself. But, our backyard is my wife’s palette. And, she Rembrandts the heck out of it.
As my wife got going on her spring yardwork, she took the liberty of preparing a small patch of ground for me. We sometimes discuss the yard - what to plant, where to plant - and we have teamed up on different yard projects over the years. However, I don’t get the same pleasure out of getting my hands in the dirt, as she does. That’s more her thing.
But this year, perhaps so that I wouldn’t feel left out, she set aside an area for me to plant whatever my little heart desired.
I chose sunflowers. I followed the directions on the seed packet religiously. And, I must say, I felt a surge of pride and accomplishment when the baby sunflowers pushed their way through the ground, reaching for the beautiful, life-giving sunshine.
Imagine my dismay when I went out there one day and all my baby sunflowers had been chomped off. Nothing but tiny stumps left. I immediately suspected the evil, rotten, little ground squirrel I had seen scurrying around.
We have a no-kill trap and I vowed to rid our yard of this pest. But, he turned out to be smarter than I realized. I caught a dove, a quail, a wren, and a lizard. No ground squirrel.
My wife suggested I replant my sunflowers and we would figure out a way to protect them. We hit on covering them with clear plastic cups from the dollar store (which were a dollar and a quarter). We cut holes in the bottoms of the cups, then put them over the new seedlings. We secured the cups with strategically placed sticks, and it worked!
I did not want to give up on catching the ground squirrel, though. My perseverance was rewarded when I finally caught the little bastard! I took him to a natural area south of us, and opened the trap. After a moment, he zipped out, paused on a pile of brush, and turned to look at me as if to say, “Well played, old man. You got me this time.” Then he ran off. Score one for the old human.
I like warm weather, so I suppose that is the main reason for my love of spring. However, there are other reasons for my spring fandom. For example, I like the longer days. I am an early riser - I usually get up between 5 and 6 am, and with dawn breaking earlier in the spring (no kidding, Captain Obvious), I can reclaim those early morning hours from winter’s cold, dark grip. And, more hours of daylight means I can get more stuff done around the house.
Ah, who am I kidding? Get more stuff done around the house? I guess I could if I hadn’t become so darn lazy in my golden years.
I have noticed that my spring optimism levels are up in ways unrelated to longer, warmer days. Maybe it is an indirect byproduct of the best of the seasons. I tend to be slightly more optimistic in general this time of year. I would not go so far as to say my outlook is “rosy”. “Pink” may be a more accurate color description, which perhaps isn’t great, but it’s a good sight better than the grays, browns, and blacks that usually describe my moods during the cooler times of year.
One of the highlights of the spring, of course, is when our tortoise, Lily, emerges from her winter brumation period. I have written previously of the excitement we experience when Lily rejoins us. She just has a special charisma, causing us to be fascinated by her every move. Lily, in her quietly magnetic, reptilian way, adds a wonderfully interesting dimension to our little family. https://thestormbynorm.substack.com/p/lily-the-tortoise
It seems as if baseball fans are particularly prone to optimism in the spring. Maybe not all of us believe our teams are going to the World Series this year, but we all think our teams will at least be better than last season. For those of us whose teams are perennially bad, we get a reset of last year’s debacle - all teams start anew at 0-0.
I suppose there is one team whose fans are not filled with the usual optimism of spring - the Oakland Athletics. John Fisher, the scumbag billionaire owner of the A’s, last year announced his intention to move the A’s to Las Vegas, basically giving a big middle finger to the loyal fans who have supported the team since 1968, when the Athletics moved to Oakland from Kansas City.
Fisher found himself in a bit of a bind, because his lease is up in Oakland at the end of 2024, and a new ballpark in Las Vegas could not possibly be ready before 2028. So he had to shop around for a place to play for a minimum of three years, possibly more.
He talked with people in Salt Lake City and Sacramento, about using their minor league facilities in the interim. And, he even met with Oakland officials on extending the current lease for three to five years. The city of Oakland did make Fisher an offer, which, in effect, told him to shove it. Why would they want to make it easy for the jerk who was screwing them over? So, the A’s will be sharing a minor league facility with a minor league team in Sacramento, with the blessing of Major League Baseball.
On top of all of this, the A’s were the worst team in baseball last year, and probably will be for the foreseeable future, due to Fisher’s obvious refusal to invest in the team on the field. How is any of this good for the sport?
Nope, no optimism in Oakland this spring. I read one report that claimed there were almost as many fans who had tickets to the Oakland season opener who stayed in the parking lot as a protest, than there were actually inside the stadium. Not only is John Fisher taking their baseball team away, he has robbed Oakland of the traditional optimistic spring, as well. What a prick.
Maybe it’s the warmth of spring and the sense of renewal and hope that comes with it, but I am even feeling the slight stirrings of optimism for the presidential election this year. I mean, I’m still very concerned about the staggering numbers of morons, losers, and idiots who identify with the cult of Biden’s predecessor. It is going to be a long, hard slog to peel off those cultists who have a few brain cells left (if there are any).
But Joe Biden is showing signs of fighting back, which is a welcome sight. He and his team are finally getting the message out as to his accomplishments. And, I just have to believe that the constant drumbeat of bad news regarding the oft-indicted, narcissistic, increasingly incoherent, criminal, lying Orange Turd, will eventually bring some good, intelligent people back to their senses.
See? I am Mr Optimism.
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My favorite time of year!!!
I so agree with you on feelings of Spring. My life changes, sometimes, just because the sun comes out in the morning. I get myself recharged with sun, so it is a requirement that we have it often. Like you, I suffer even with fall, just knowing doomsdays are ahead. I love your attitude about planting and flowers in your yard. Great pictures. I work hard to put in perennials so things come back, but this last year my gardener accidently wiped most of them out as he completely cut down the grasses in my hillside garden, including the butterfly Milk Weed plants that were thriving for 2 years and other perennials in including 2 butterfly bushes. He thought they, too were weeds. He is no longer allowed in my garden. I feed birds, too, and they can cost more to feed then myself, but it is worth it. Their population is shrinking due to climate change, and too many farrel cats. Love your turtle! looks like he needs a pond...or perhaps he has one. Best pet, next to horses and dogs. Happy Spring! Wish we could bottle it.