Spring...my new favorite season...

I have always been an autumn girl. I love crisp cool weather, new fall sweaters, ochre, red, brown... but this year, I am really appreciating the miracle of springtime, when nature shows its resiliency and incredible beauty. Plants that you think could not possibly survive winter in the northeast bud and bloom and restore my faith. I breathe deeply the smell of fresh-cut grass, flowers, wet earth, and warm sun.-- Yes, I smell the warm sun. Okay, maybe I feel it, but part of the magic of spring for me is the mingling of the senses.
Birds...
another miracle of spring in upstate New York.
I have a nest of baby robins outside my kitchen window. From behind the sheers in my kitchen, I watched as they built the nest in my arborvitae, twig, by twig... and I watched the day they defended the eggs from a common grackle. I saw what it really means to "get ones feathers up" as the robin plumped up to appear larger and more threatening and successfully defended the nest. And now I watch as mother robin brings them worms, seemingly all day long. She has at least four hungry mouths to feed, from what I can see when I dare to intrude by using my own deck, and I am in awe of the devotion and duty of motherhood.