TERRE HAUTE —
Despite the calendar telling us not to rush things, I think it is all right to go ahead and say spring is here. The Ides of March has passed, Easter is coming soon, and I have already been out in my yard with a rake, getting my boots muddy. It looks like spring to me.
I have been catching myself staring out windows on these wet, gray days; it is a habit I develop as winter wears out her welcome and my mind wanders away from my desk to visit golf courses and fishing holes and lawn mower service counters. I have moved a few short-sleeved shirts to the front of my closet, dug out a pair of sandals, even had a golf club re-gripped a few days ago, not because I can use them right away, but just so they’ll be handy when they’re needed.
This pre-spring is different from that of a year ago. It is wetter, for one thing. By this time last year, I noted that there was no water standing in any of the fields my wife and I journeyed past on our daily walks; in fact, violent little dust devils were sending ominous messages that perhaps a hot summer was on its way. We got the memo, sooner than later, and nearly ran out of sweat in the bargain.
This year, a few of the corn and bean fields near here are holding water like big brown bathtubs, the pools occasionally skimmed over with ice on the coldest nights, rippled during the day by the winds that now come more from the west and south than the north. It seems to me that most of spring’s new life comes from those shallow little puddles, and from the ditches that gurgle with water that never ran in them at all until late fall last year. It will be a good year, I think, for tadpoles and crawdads and turtles. We missed them last year, and we felt cheated by their absence.
It was in a spring like this one just a few years ago that a pair of whooping cranes made an extended stop near our place. They decided they liked the fishing and frog gigging in the field ponds that were fed by an overfilled Raccoon Creek, and so, for a few weeks anyway, we got to see them from a distance as they milled about like a couple of old geezers at a shopping mall.
We have taken note that the Canada geese near our place seem to be scratching out nesting places, too, and that the trees seem to be alive with the scraggy starlings that led me to invest in a power washer a few years ago. Their contribution to the spring is less than pleasant, but if getting it here earlier means cleaning up after these freeloaders’ visits, it’s worth it.
It was kite-windy last week when I started to believe for real that spring was just around the corner, and despite a little rain, and a little snow, and a lot of wind, it is the memory of seeing a pair of young boys with their dad as they tossed a baseball around in their yard that has stayed with me. Within minutes of seeing them, I drove past an open produce stand, and the thought of tomatoes and sweet corn nearly made me want to skip spring altogether and go straight to summer. Nearly.
There is more to early spring than lettuce and radish seed going into the cold earth. I have seen the skin of young sassafras trees beginning to green, have already pulled a handful of early red maple buds out of my gutters where a cruel cold wind deposited them, as if warning them not to get in too big of a hurry. The moles have gotten into the act, too, tunneling near the wood line like greedy little miners looking for a big strike of grubs. The killdeer are already squawking, as well. They nag at Joanie and me as we walk by the ground they’ve staked out for nests later in the spring. They are excellent real estate developers, these big-mouthed little curmudgeons, but we’re glad to put up with their noise.
It is an exciting time for us to walk out on our deck at night with our cats’ evening meal or a few table scraps to hear the peepers down on the pond. They seem to be the true harbingers of spring, and as I’ve written before, it is a grand thing to know they have survived the winter snuggled in wet tree bark or under their blankets of cold leaves, only to emerge optimistic and eager to find mates and to start making house payments like the rest of us.
Spring may be springing, but I continue to feed the birds as if we had a foot of snow on the ground. This has been a good year for the jays and cardinals and woodpeckers. Just days ago, we saw three kinds of the latter — downy, red-headed and red-bellied — all dining together on sunflower seeds, cracked corn and millet with nary an argument among them. We’ve also watched a red squirrel come and go to the feeder all winter, his girth gradually building with his steady fix of ear corn. A young possum that I thoughtlessly named “Gary” also moved into our barn this winter, and he magically appears when he hears us filling the cat pans. These friends are addicted to our handouts, but until a spring menu of berries and bugs is posted, I have no intention of weaning them off the dole.
As reluctant as she is to get out of town, winter is history, and as the days move on, spring is dropping off notes that it is on its way. Like everyone else, I am grumbling about having to readjust my clock to New York City time just as I was beginning to see the sun breaking in the east as I drove to work. My daughter, however, has told me she has already watched a painted turtle seeking the sun on the bank of a nearby pond, and just a few days ago, she snapped a picture of an albino robin sitting in a nest near her house.
I am watching a light snow fall outside my window as I bring this story to a close. It is another gray day, and the forecast isn’t calling for much more than overcast skies, and even more rainy days for a while. In my mind, though, the sky is blue, and the grass is already green.
Mike Lunsford can be reached by email at hickory913@aol.com, or c/o the Tribune-Star at P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. You can learn more about his writing by going to his website at www.mikelunsford.com. He is currently working on his fourth book, “A Windy Hill Almanac,” and will be discussing “Tom, Twain, and the Wilderness of Childhood” as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Westminster Village on March 27.
Mike Lunsford
MIKE LUNSFORD: As of today, it’s unofficially spring
- Mike Lunsford
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MIKE LUNSFORD: We’ve created a honey of a problem
The Dutch clover is making its appearance in my yard this week. A cooler-than-usual spring has slowed its arrival by a few days, but it is here for now, bringing the honeybees and bumblebees with it.
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A walk in the woods
I went for a walk in the woods one day last week after work. It was a warm and green afternoon, and a fresh blue breeze blew in from the west like a new spring friend.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘Dowsers’ provide hope more than science
My grandfather was a man of God. Many times I saw him, his right hand held high in the air at his Wednesday night “prayer meeting,” praising the Lord before weeping at the altar on his knees. And yet, he was a “dowser,” a “diviner,” a “witcher” who, as a favor, would grab a forked sassafras stick and find water for some poor unfortunate whose well had gone dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: As of today, it’s unofficially spring
Despite the calendar telling us not to rush things, I think it is all right to go ahead and say spring is here. The Ides of March has passed, Easter is coming soon, and I have already been out in my yard with a rake, getting my boots muddy. It looks like spring to me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Twain’s Sawyer helps us yearn for ‘wilderness of childhood’
My cousin, Roger, stopped in one day last summer for a glass of tea and a little conversation. Rog has lived an hour’s drive away for years and now, and besides summer reunions, I don’t see him nearly often enough. He’s a good man who has raised a good family, and he owns a healthy sense of appreciation for not only the life he has now, but also the lives we had years ago as kids.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Cheerful green of wheat fights winter blahs
There is a light drizzle of freezing rain tapping at the door of my cabin today. It is little more than a week before the words I am writing are due to appear on your breakfast table or work desk with your morning coffee and scrambled eggs. But I write when I can, and today, despite a full schedule of televised football games, and the stacks of ungraded papers in my briefcase, and a good book lying open on my nightstand, I am clacking away on a keyboard to the whir of a heater and the steady drip of my gutters.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On the simple joys of watching it snow ...
It began to snow about 20 minutes ago, as I write this, light, wind-driven flakes that fall silently into my woods as I watch from a window.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On this day above all, ‘Peace on earth, good will to men’
More than a year after his wife’s death, the great American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote in his diary on Christmas Day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Remembering a Lefty Frizzell-kind of Christmas ...
My brother and sister and I sat around a Thanksgiving dinner table a month ago, shifting in our seats just enough to make our yet-to-be digested turkey sit a little more easily, and, as we often do when we get together, we reminisced about our childhoods for a while.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The wonders of wading in ‘The Iridescence of a Shallow Stream’
I have no idea how many times I have written a story that begins with the wistful phrase, “When I was a boy. ...”
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Little man who came to dinner changes feel of household
My 7-year-old nephew, Carson, came to visit us last week. That in itself isn’t earth-shattering news, for he often drops by with one of his parents or the other, the last time dressed as a ghoul for Halloween. But for a couple like Joanie and me, whose youngest child is now nearly two decades past Carson’s age, having a little guy like him in the house, even for a few hours, takes a bit of adjusting.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Reflections: a bit of red glass and our daily thanksgivings
I sat in the half-light of my old desk lamp a few nights ago, a chilly wind blowing in from the northwest that made me appreciative of my long-sleeved shirt and purring heater.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Growing up — and ‘old’ — with many mouths to feed
At our family reunion last summer, I asked my brother if I could borrow a pair of photo albums he had put together. Over the past couple of years, I have committed quite a few of our family’s old yellowing snapshots to newly cropped and digitalized lives, and I wanted to do the same with some of the pictures John has collected for himself.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Violets in October – a pleasant surprise
I guess I don’t pay much attention to the weather forecasts these days because it surprised me a bit when our furnace kicked on a few nights ago.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A library is a good thing — even a little, homegrown one
I grew up with libraries, and I can’t imagine there ever being a time when I won’t want to wander one exploring it like some bookworm-Balboa, finding an author or title that I never really knew existed before. Creating those “Eureka” moments seems to be a dying interest now that so many of us download and digest books electronically without ever really considering that there just might be some hidden gem we’d have liked even more had we simply stumbled upon it on a shelf by accident. I think those moments of discovery are not unlike kicking up lost treasure a mile from where X marks the spot.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The ‘soothsayer’ who came to dinner
I’ve had a good time opening my mail these past few weeks. Sure, I still received the usual junk about lower credit card rates and satellite television packages, but the genuine letters made me smile; most were about a story I wrote in late August.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The agony of de‘feet’ has this writer on his heels
I don’t know if I can electrocute myself by using a computer and soaking my feet in a pan of warm water at the same time, but I am contemplating taking the risk. My feet, particularly the right foot, have staged a 10-digit rebellion over the past few months. After a half-century of commendable service, my pods are screaming to be taken in for repairs, a big inconvenience for a guy who works on his feet all day and whose “sole” form of serious exercise is putting one foot in front of another walking the local roadways.
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Mike Lunsford: Summer’s hidden beauty worth the wait
The great naturalist John Burroughs once said that nature teaches more than she preaches. I can’t recall a summer where that rings true more than this one, for that old sun of ours truly taught us a thing or two these past three months.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time to redefine the concept of ‘assisted living’
Although it has been nearly two months now, I can’t forget the few afternoon hours I spent on a hot June day this summer at a local “assisted living” facility in town. I had been asked to speak to a group of men there about Father’s Day, but for most part, the wonderful old guys who came to listen certainly made my day more memorable than I did theirs.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Observations on smooth stones and blue-green water…
It was raining when I began to write this. Although no one could rightfully call what we got this afternoon a “downpour,” it was nice to have my windows open to hear the steady drops of a passing shower tapping on my dry-as-dust deck and hard-as-concrete yard.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: This summer has us recalling the heat of ’36
It was “only” 99 degrees one afternoon last week when I decided to work on a backyard deck. With a jack and a drill and a little more sweat than I wanted to invest in the project, I went about the business of leveling its sags and dips a bit. The sun pounded down on my head and shoulders like a thug’s blackjack, but as I packed my tools and drank a glass of cool water under a big maple tree a few hours later, I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I’ve been these past few dusty and drought-stricken weeks. I have worked under this summer’s heat lamp for only a few hours at a time, but God help the roofers and utility linesmen and firemen, and so many others, who are out in it day after long hot day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: We had no better friend than Andy Taylor
The world is a sadder place now that Andy Griffith has died, but at least we still have Andy Taylor.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Wading deeper into the subject of Blue Herons
Like a relative who has worn out his welcome, the hot, parched weather of this young summer has already overstayed its visit with us, so my wife and I have found ourselves walking our road later in the evenings to keep our feet cool and our backs dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Thanking two dads whose gifts have never stopped coming…
It is nearly a week until Father’s Day, but I have had my dad, and my father-in-law — a second dad to me — on my mind today. I wrote about both men just a few weeks ago, but I have set my mind to write about them again anyway. I don’t want this story to be sad; they both loved to laugh and wouldn’t want that. No, I just wanted to tell them hello, and to thank them again for what they still do for me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Raising a flag for my father, veteran or not
My daughter, Ellen, and I stood at my parents’ graves on Mother’s Day a few weeks back and talked about how it couldn’t possibly have been so long since we lost them. My dad, for instance, has been gone for 16 years, and that is nearly unimaginable
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Time to become one of the boys of summer again …
Besides writing for a living, I teach school, and I’m not ashamed to tell people that I still love my classroom. I’ve been a teacher for 33 years, all of them in the same school district, and virtually all of them in the same building. But I also have to tell you that if the next few weeks don’t slide by pretty quickly, I may just let loose of the last thread of sanity from which I have been dangling for a while now. There are a lot of teachers out there who feel the same way.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time for us to get the real lowdown on dirt…
I have had my hands in the soil as of late. Two Fridays ago, I planted a viburnum bush, three chrysanthemums and a yellow poplar, not because it happened to be Earth Day, but because it was sunny and warm, and I had the whole afternoon to myself. The dirt I scraped out of and back into the shallow holes I dug near a backyard picket fence smelled good, and when dampened with a few sprinkles of water, it soon found its way into the deep wrinkles of my knuckles and under my fingernails. For the most part, I have nothing but good things to say about dirt.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Make big money: Raise worms at home for fun and profit…
When I think about all of the crazy things my brother and sister and I did just to make a few dollars when we were kids, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for teens this summer as they try to find jobs in what is supposed to be a very tight market. Money, to say the least, was a rare commodity when we were growing up, but you have to at least give us credit for trying.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d…’
Had white lace curtains been hanging in the west window of my cabin, I would have had a perfect Wyeth painting to watch last Thursday. A gentle breeze was wafting through my screens, and the sunlight of a warm late March day was fractured by the window sill as it poured onto my legs and feet. I could catch the scent of lilacs as it was carried in by that wind, and it and the subtle melody of the chimes that hang just outside made me as lazy as an old cat.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A report from the country as a new season brings sense of renewal
Regardless of what the calendar may yet say, spring has happened. It couldn’t have come too soon, and it wasn’t just last week and its windy 70s that have convinced me. I have been keeping a journal of sorts in my head for a fortnight now, stashing away reports of birds and buds and sounds in the crammed cabinets of my mind, all in a file marked, “The New Season.”
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