April MishMash

 Yes, mishmash is too a word. If it wasn’t a word, what did you just read? I rest my case.

April weather has been all over the place—which is kind of normal. I remember the Easters of my childhood often containing a little bit of everything; rain, sun, snow, some wind, perhaps a brief burst of hail—or as one of my sons referred to it as when he was little and observed hail falling on our back deck—“Look, Mom! Snow Skittles!”

April First has come and gone. I recall my dad’s love for April Fool’s pranks—one of his great successes was telling his teenaged daughter-- at sunrise-- that her horse got out. I dragged my sleepy carcass out of bed and into boots and came stumbling out to ask him in which direction my wayward steed had been headed only to have him triumphantly crow “April Fools!” Well played, Willis. Well played.

Johnny searchs for hanging blueberries

Easter was last week and I watched the next generation of kids and dogs, hunting Easter eggs. The weather was semi-co-operative and the egg hunt was held outdoors—not indoors. A much better locations, we can all agree. It’s a lot easier for the dogs to abscond with some delicious treasure that way.

The sun came out long enough that I was even able to mow my grass for the first time this year. And in related good news—my lawn mower fired right up. Hooray!

We have new neighbors here in my neck of the woods and they are lovely people. Which, in itself, is nice. They also happen to be lovely people with a tractor brush hog attachment, a dislike of encroaching blackberry bushes, and a willingness to subdue my unruly vines as well as their own. They say fences make good neighbors but I submit that tractor owning neighbors make good neighbors. I feel pretty fortunate to have a plethora a generous, tractor owning neighbors, and Dene and Gloria fit right in. Welcome to the neighborhood!

All in all, April is off to a good start.