It rained during the night but not nearly enough. Most of it on the road has already dried. The day is damp but warm and quite still. I opened the windows upstairs and could smell freshly mowed grass. Dampness seems to accentuate smells, and my nose was filled with the sweet smell of that grass, the flowers in the front garden and an earthy smell of dirt.

I filled the feeders, including a suet feeder. When I was getting another cup of coffee, I looked out the kitchen window and saw a spawn eating the suet. I ran out yelling and scared the spawn away but only for a few minutes. It was back at the suet in no time and when I looked later, the suet had been finished off. That’s what I wish I could do to the spawn.

My backyard has what a real estate brochure might call rustic charm. All that means is I have done little to it except take down some dead pine trees. The yard is filled with leaves and pine needles and more pine trees. All around the perimeter is a path Gracie has made by running the yard. She runs next to the fence. Sometimes she runs around the yard, up one side of the deck and down the other. I think of the back as her yard. Near the deck are some lights, a bottle tree and decorations I put out every summer. I love looking down and seeing the lights in the yard and the fun decorations. New this year are two huge individual star lights and a large handmade bird my friends gave for Christmas. It is white with long orange legs and an orange peak. It will join the hula dancing bird, the wooden flowers, the white pot and the bowling pin.

My deck is still in winter mode. I have to make a list yet of what I need at the garden center. I know some pots broke during the winter, and I need herbs for the window boxes which fit over the deck rail. I also need flowers for about six different pots and a hanging pot of flowers, but all of that is just the start. The front garden needs a few more flowers, the herb garden looks empty and forlorn and my vegetable garden needs fence mending and plantings. It was such fun last summer to eat cucumbers and tomatoes I grew myself. This summer I’ll add a third vegetable yet to be determined. It will not be zucchini. That vegetable seems to reproduce itself and take over the world. The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is a movie that makes me laugh, but it would be more realistic (okay, maybe it will never be realistic, but I’m using poetic license here) if the vegetable was changed to zucchini. Anyone who grows it always seems to be giving it away, begging people to take some. I can easily imagine vines of zucchini wrapping around cars and houses and the feet of barking dogs.

It is definitely beginning to feel like spring around here.