solidly spring

The northern hemisphere has finally shifted into warmer days. In the Midwest, it means hearing the constant rumble of tractors from every corner of the compass, plowing and planting and spraying the fields for this year’s round of crops. City and suburban gardeners also venture out to local nurseries and big box stores to pick up seedlings and fresh bags of potting soil for their own vegetable patches and flower beds.

It is only mid-morning, but the sun is already well into the sky when I step out the door with my first cup of coffee. European starlings, exiled from their native range 160 years ago, chatter noisily in the maple tree above my head. It’s not their fault they’re here, so I hate to evict them…but if I let them stay, they will bully away the native birds that have also chosen this plot of land to call home–so the nest must go. After, of course, another cup of coffee.