The Spring Picture

I love painting my Spring picture as glorious as Hobbiton from Lord of the Rings. Think The Shire, lush green plantations, weed (kidding!), and warm biscuits! Why the dream sequence? Because beneath the surface are menacing issues popping their heads up. 

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♫ TAKIN' CARE OF BUSINESS ♫

When I say issues, I mean business --- no pun intended --- It is good to imagine the Somewhere Over The Rainbow soundtrack playing behind an ideal Spring. But actually, there will be weeds (garden ones) plaguing my yards and eating the grass, leaks popping in roofs of tenants' homes, mutant ninja bugs invading the house through cracks and crevices, and dealing with outdoors management issues. Basically my mother would want to go Martha Stewart around the place and that would mean my chauffeur services would be required to go pick up plants from the nursery (pretending to take interest). Don't get me wrong, I was very genuinely interested when I helped purchase those Snapdragons and Dusty Millers. But my Hydrangea died, okay! I had named it Arwen, and she died on me! I lost interest. So my nerves would be tested when I would spend an entire day at the 'planting ceremony' when the saplings would make it into the earth, mocking the burial place of Arwen.  

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HOW I SHOOK HANDS WITH SPRING

It was two years ago that I shook hands with Spring and we sorted our differences. Differences existed because I always believed I was a Fall baby. One must not limit. Despite the new sought friendship; like all friendships, something did screw up and Arwen died on me. I was weirded out by the outdoors, but I figured there was only one way to tackle Mother Nature ... dive into the mulch! No, not literally, but definitely to take matters by their horns and tame them. The best way to work, I believe, is to do it like an adventure and insert humor in the horror! Also, because two years ago I suffered through some very challenging emotional blows. I wrote, as I completed the 2017 Spring Bucket List:

"I was on a very challenging trip, away from home when the year began. Let's just say it was a 'not-too-pleasant' adventure. There was chaos, panic, and fast-paced madness that induced an emotional wreckage of nerves. On coming back, I intended to enjoy the slowness of things. I was ready to sit and watch the grass grow."

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PLANS FOR SPRING

So, now that Spring and I are buddies, the season does not bother me too much. It is more welcome now that I have learned to make the best of it. Last year, I realized that my only green thumb is with cacti, and so I got my first Moon Cactus, 'Newt Scamander' - named after the Magizoologist himself. I have featured the creature in the photo. So I intend to progress on my collection and perhaps bring a Grindelwald to keep it company. I know some tenant or the other will call in a clogged rain gutter, some roof leakage, or something along those lines. My blood pressure will go up and I will embark upon a mission of finding a reasonable handyman who will not tell me the house is so badly messed up that it will sink into the Earth's core. I might spend the season getting a tree or two down. Having said that, let's see what the Spring picture will actually look like.