The time changed yesterday and today it felt like spring. Spring has been teasing us for at least a month. Yes, a month, since the beginning of February. We’ve had almost no winter this year and almost no snow since the week of Christmas. I’m grieving the missed skiing. But at some point you just give up and make your peace with the lack of winter, and decide it’s best to get on with spring. Which is why the cooler temperatures of the past couple of weeks were leading us to feel impatient. And then today here we are: it really felt like spring.

We got the trampoline out. Sophie and Fiona bounced and flipped. We raked leaves. I pruned the centre out of the pear tree. (It’s 18 years old this spring, being the tree we planted Noah’s first spring. It produced well last year but was due for a hard pruning.) We dragged some of the pruned branches over to the fire pit and burned them. We threw in some books.

Books in the fire? Yes, we’re in purge mode. We’re getting rid of things that we don’t need anymore. If they’re likely to be valued by others, we’re trying to find ways to pass them along or donate them. If they’re dated, in poor condition or of limited use, we’re throwing them out. And in the case of some of our books, that means throwing them into a bonfire.

And then I started trying to get the corner posts off the deck apron. I want to replace them with tall posts that support an arbour. I already have the string lights on order.

And I started turning over the soil in pots and small garden beds. My recent interest is in hydroponics (more on that soon, I hope!), but I am hoping to also do a better job of raising a kitchen garden than I have for the past several years. I need to keep my ambitions in check because there’s no water or fencing out in the far garden, and that means there’s just no point in even trying. So I’ll focus on herbs and greens, and plant small beds and pots close to the house where there is water. Basil is germinating on the mantle.