Gravel meditation

Wow! What a glorious day it is today! The thermometer here at my house showed 82 degrees for a short time this afternoon and I tried to be outdoors as much as I could. I fired the kiln with student work and a little bit of my work this morning and I don't like to be too far away from it while it's simmering at 1650 degrees in my studio. But the windows are open, ceiling fans are running and I'm one happy girl. (It does feel a little strange for it to be this warm and there's still no leaves on the trees, but I'm not complaining!)

After the kiln was finished I spent a couple of hours sitting on the ground in my front yard hand-picking gravel out of the grass that was left there when the snow plow dumped the snow. I need to get the majority of it out of there before it dings up the lawnmower blade, or a stone gets pitched through one of my windows, and before the grass gets too high. I raked and shoveled as much of it as I could, but then I really enjoyed the meditative feeling of doing a mindless task while sitting in the warm sunshine in shorts and a t-shirt. Pick up a handful of rocks, throw 'em in a bucket... pick up a handful of rocks...Ahhhhh.... this is what we dreamed of when there was two feet of snow on the ground. 

During my gravel meditation I was making of metal list of gardening chores - things that need to be pruned and cleaned out and where and what annuals I want to plant. (Tender plants will have to wait at least another month, though, to be safe from any late frost.) I also wandered around the yard to see what was peeking through the ground and what had buds: peonies, Shasta daisies, columbine, tall and short phlox, quince, rhododendron and forsythia. And now, as the sun goes down behind the mountain, I'm sitting here on my back porch enjoying a glass of wine and listening to the spring peepers over in the bog looking for love. Spring fever, for sure!