As Giddy as a Baby on a Swing

Color on the ground

“Calendar” spring arrives annually on March 20 or 21 (depending on the year), regardless of the weather. That’s the spring solstice, the 24-hour period where day and night equal each other in length. “Meteorological” spring, by contrast, is determined by changes in temperature and precipitation, so here in the “mid-latitudes,” March 1 through May 31 is designated as spring by meteorologists. The first of March? Are they kidding?

All that aside, what can we call the kind of spring that bursts forth at last in all its intoxicating glory, the day that daffodils begin opening and peepers go mad in the wetlands and the air is finally warm and everyone wants to be outdoors and the whole world is happy, happy, happy? “Ecological” comes closer to the idea than “calendar” or “meteorological” but still leaves out that all-important feeling component. “Ecological” sounds like something observed and dispassionately recorded, doesn’t it?  Hardly the way we feel. Well, this year, 2013, in Leelanau County, “felt” spring exploded joyously on Saturday, April 27. There were earlier hints and allegations, but no one could doubt Saturday’s evidence. It surged in the blood and sang in the heart, bringing out smiles and laughter.

Sarah in woods

So why on earth would I go to work early, indoors, with spring bursting all around me? Saran and I had gone out even earlier, as soon as the sun was up, and I found one brave little spring beauty blooming among the crowds of wild leeks in the woods (a day later there were too many spring beauty blossoms to count), while Sarah sniffed and sniffed. Besides looking, I listened and listened, scanning the still-bare treetops for the morning’s song-makers. But  there was that big blank space of wall above my new bookstore desk area, crying out to be covered, and I could hardly wait to start rehanging my own personal art wall, a mix of Michigan and Paris scenes. There! Very satisfying! 

Come see the wall "in person"

He's a good worker

Bill Coohon came over in the afternoon to help out with our new door confusion. You see, directly over my new entry door AND the door to my neighbor’s business is a big sign saying LAW OFFICE. The word LAW is actually over the new bookstore door (OFFICE over the office door), and the first couple of people who stopped by on Saturday morning stood in front of the bookstore window looking lost and making questioning gestures at me through the glass. “What? Where? How?” Which way to turn? We hope the big new letters on the new door will help. Bill certainly did a good job with them, don’t you think?

This way in!

Many old friends and a few new ones did eventually find their way inside, and we got a little giddy, what with the warm spring day and the exciting bookstore changes. 

What is she holding forth about this time?

Is Sarah following the plot?

Oh, look! Paintings, too!

By the time we closed up and went home, the first of the old daffodils under the silver maple were open to the sun. It’s really true. It’s really spring. We can feel it at last.

More sunshine yellow

Color My World Sunshine-Bright

Bright yellow rubberized raincoat cheers me up.

Standing water

It’s shaping up to be a rainy day today in northern Michigan. Is this good or bad? Lake levels, going by the shore of Grand Traverse Bay, still seem low; on the other hand, inland fields are full of rain and snowmelt puddles the size of large ponds. Is the ground saturated? Tricky question where so much soil is clay, because clay forms a barrier that traps water so that it can't move further down, except where it can run downhill, as a lot of it is already doing this season, heading for little creeks that eventually feed into Lake Michigan.

Running water --

-- headed for the Big Lake

We had very welcome sunshine on Monday and the warmest temperatures so far this spring, with open water  appearing on Lake Leelanau and remnants of ice (turned a punky green) gliding slowly toward the Leland River, the outlet for the whole 8,607-acre (North and South combined) inland lake.

North Lake Leelanau

It wasn’t until evening that I had a chance to see the disappearing ice on Lake Leelanau because I spent most of the day indoors at the bookstore, climbing up a ladder and back down again, moving the ladder, pouring paint and spreading it on my new wall, as well as on a couple areas of old stucco wall (above the front windows and where the old woodstove used to be years back) that never got painted the last time around. In the photo below you can see, up at the left, a small bit of dirty beige yet to be covered. The stucco areas, at least, and maybe the new wall, too, could use a second coat, and that’s my job for today. But what a cheery change! And doesn’t the new wall look just the color of sunshine?

A peek through our new interior door into Clare's gallery space shows you her new wall color, too. We're still waiting for first crocuses, but Dog Ears Books and Red Mullein Gallery are already colorful.

Out in the woods on Sunday I did run across one very bright spot of color on the ground and would have taken longer to ponder and photograph the sight, except that Sarah discovered something more interesting to her: a fairly fresh, predator-ravaged dead skunk. "Leave it!" and move on seemed the wisest course of action. I've reordered the Audubon North American mushroom field guide, but I don't expect to be bringing these bright red cups to the table. Something about their color shouts "Stop!" almost as loudly as the odor of skunk carcass shouted "Leave it!"

Mystery fungus

Author/book note: Those who missed Loreen Niewenhuis last Thursday and/or those who want to see and hear her again, along with a slide/video show of her latest adventure, will have a second chance in July when she comes back to Northport as part of the summer author series at our wonderful local library. I also, of course, have the story of her adventure at Dog Ears Books now – even a few signed copies, while they last.