Ah, Spring

Ah, spring is in the air.  Damn.  I dread this time of year, always.  True to my contrarian nature, I dislike what most people describe as "beautiful weather."  Sun + heat = blech.  Why?  Just a few reasons: my fondness for black, a horrible sun allergy, a horrible everything else allergy, squinting at blinding sunshine, higher risk of skin cancer, sticky sunblock slathered on to reduce said higher risk of skin cancer, something more than mere modesty preventing me from blithely prancing around in tank tops and shorts in pastel colors, and finally, the looming uncomfortable humidity of another sweltering city summer just around the corner.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

But what about your new tiny plot, the two of you reading this may ask.  Looking at it from my bedroom window I noticed that my neighbors have fenced off their area, probably venturing a few precious inches into mine.  Had I been proactive about it, I suppose I could have pre-empted their taking liberties early on, thus preventing me from gardening in what amounts to land the size of a postage stamp.  My enthusiasm has waned a little for me to go bounding into the garden with my trowel.  I haven't even given much consideration to what I want to plant this year.

Another reason for my reluctance is fear... well, more anxiety really.  Last year before it got really cold, I removed the strawberries and chives from their wine boxes and planted them in the ground.  Although the boxes were in terrible shape, I thought I might have further use for them and left them stacked upside down in the middle of my otherwise empty plot.  The last winter was the snowiest and windiest we've had here in years and the boxes were a bit tossed about and I never bothered to throw them out or restack them.  Now I'm dreading turning them over and finding a family of squirrels or worse, rats.  Although I suppose I would have heard from my all too vocal neighbors had that happened.

To end this post on a positive note, here's a lovely poem from one of my favorites, Robert Browning.  I echo the first two lines - whether it's April or not.

O, TO be in England
Now that April 's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf	5
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!	10
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture	15
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!	20