Top Ten List: Early-Warning Signs of Spring

rhodiebuds.jpgThis is a hopeful time of year. The days are noticeably longer and the breezes are gentler souls. It’s too early for crocus, but I still feel spring. Here’s my top ten early-warning signs of spring:

10. Buds on the rhododendrons.

9. Bye-bye to the extra blanket on my bed until next winter.

8. High-end Easter and gardening items (all those seeds!) displayed in my favorite grocery store. Too early for Easter stuff in my opinion, but I appreciate their cheerful colors anyhow.

7.  Open-toed sandals on sale at Macy’s!

6. Strange but good-looking men wandering around my neighbor’s backyard, followed by the delicious scent of mown grass. (Said neighbors are an old couple who need professional help with mowing, tree-trimming, vegetable garden priming, and so on.)

5. Re-emergence of birds: hectoring scrub jays; male Anna’s hummingbird (bright pink helmet) checking out my feeder; red-breasted robins hopping around in search of worms; migrating songbirds twittering through the bushes; a northern flicker (think: giant woodpecker) tap-tap-tapping on my outside walls in the morning.

4. Honking Canada geese heading for their summer feeding grounds.

3. Those cutey Girl Scouts selling their almond rocas and peppermint patties. How could I not buy one (and only one) box?

2. As mentioned a few posts ago, my devil cat going stir crazy with spring fever. For his encore performance, he chewed through the exercise band I use for rotator cuff strengthening. It had been dangling from a little-used door for a year! Thank goodness he’s willing to go outdoors now is all I can say.

AND, my top sign of the coming spring…

resortportludlow.jpg

1. My spring-fever stir craziness that has me longing to shake up my winter-weary routines and look out on a fresh view while I write. So, tomorrow I leave for an impromptu writers retreat weekend! I’d been thinking about it, but this photo on novelist Susan Wigg’s blog finally compelled me to overcome inertia. The literary dinner is a bonus.

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