Spring Is Here,

At 7:02 this morning Spring arrived, I wished my wife a Happy Spring as she walked out the door on her way to work.  She looked at  several  inches of fresh  snow and turned and said "Shut Up and I mean that in the nicest way possible".  More snow expected for Monday, which means I have yet another opportunity to spread grass seed and have it snowed under and also to annoy my wife.  I have been told that the way to a great spring lawn is to plant grass seed and let the snow cover it.  I do not tire of winter as do many, for I am out in the weather on a daily basis.  I usually hike on Sundays and it is just part of the year.  But now many are literally chanping at the bit for warmth and sun and ditching the down and fleece.

But Spring is coming and I look forward to the emergence of daffodils and my neighbors.  I saw one of them yesterday at 6 AM,  it was Bert.  He retired  in October. He is a retired CPA, he was scraping the ice off his windshield so he could go to work.  It is Tax Season, and like the fire house horse, he is answering the bell.  He told me that he came back up to do a few and he was going back to Florida today. I laughed and told him thast I give him another 4 months of "retirement" before he is back and working full time.  He and his wife have an in law suite in their son's house.  They are a great family.  They usually stay down at the Jersey Shore, but their house got wrecked in the hurricane.  They took  the news like stoics. But Bert came up for a few clients in Tax Season and did their work and he is now back to Florida.  Good to see someone other than myself outside at 6 AM.  The kids next door will be coming over to throw frisbies to the dog.  Young Erin compliments me on my frisbie ability, which is about the sum of my athletic prowess these days.  But her annual spring time accolade is worth seeking.

But I am waiting to see more of the neighbors.  They supply an endless level of entertainment.  Across the street they have a couple of young teenagers.  They are always the best.  They have summertime basketball games in the driveway till 10PM, when Mom and Dad tell them it is time to shut it down.  I love their daughter , for she and her friends entertained me with their clinbing out the back window on one side of the house , scuttling across the roof and entering another window on the other side of the house. Teen age bravado in the distaff set.  I watched this nonsense from my porch, unbeknownst to them last summer.  Of course I told her mom on the QT, lest one of them fall 30 feet to ground and break a neck. When I told Mom of the goings on, she pivoted on her heel and took off like a heat seeking missle.  I had to grab her and prevent her from killing her daughter, When she calmed down we had a good laugh  about it, but I am sure it later resulted in a parent daughter talk.

They are a nice family and good neighbors. We do not take ourselves too seriously and we are able to laugh together, I hope it ever remains so.  So this spring we will emerge and say hello and soak up the warmth and that is what neighborhood is all about.