Sweet Spring Awakening

I don't keep it a secret that Winter is by far my favorite season. But that doesn't mean I can ignore the smells and colors of Fall and the sound of leaves when shuffling through them or the splendor of a Summer garden or the tinge of excitement when the Earth is awakening to Spring and robins come back home and thoughts of playing hopscotch on a sidewalk that's been buried in snow makes you go searching for chalk of any size, any color.

Having grown up in the country, Spring surrounded us. With the creek out back pushing far beyond its banks and geese flying high above us, my cousins and I frolicked outside until dragged inside and when we went inside, we'd most likely be soaking wet from playing in a stream that ran alongside our grandparents' farmhouse. If the weather changed and the temperature dipped, that little stream would turn to ice. But that didn't stop us. We'd find shovels or picks and open our highway back up so we could find some twigs and use them to race each other's twigs down that stream to the finish. I don't ever remember being cold when playing in that stream even when my mittens were soaking wet and my nose was dripping and my boots were full of mucky water mixed with leaves and stones. None of that matters when you are a kid and Spring is turning your Winter playground into something brand new and exciting, offering brand new things to play and explore until Spring turns to Summer and that little stream dries up and disappears under the sunshine and heat of the new season.

I can't remember if my grandparents tapped their maple trees but I do remember some other farms nearby with buckets on their trees. Now when I drive down those country roads and see buckets collecting sap, I think back to those days of chasing twigs and playing hopscotch in boots that were soaking wet but it didn't matter. It was Spring! And Spring, with all of its mud and grime, is a most marvelous place to play!