I took this picture in my friend’s yard. To me, it was a symbol of renewal. I don’t know what bird built it or if it will ever be used again, but it was beautiful in its starkness.  There is beauty in simplicity. 

Spring begins, by the calendar, this week.  The weather has been unseasonably warm this winter.  And with the good always comes the bad – wild fires.  They have devastated western Oklahoma lately.  But what is devastating to the farmer is a time of renewal for nature.

In keeping with the title of my blogs this year, Something New, I watch nature with a keen eye.  My jonquils are dying as my tulips are blooming.  I’ve done some spring cleaning in the gardens, but my aging body doesn’t work all day like it used to.  I must do it in shifts.  Unlike the burned prairies, I doubt my body will renew itself. 

A friend and I walked the block-long Art and Food Truck Festival on the still-bricked Maple street in front of Creative Arts of Enid and Leonardo’s. We soaked up the art, sunshine, music, and food as we browsed our way along.  I met many friends along the way.   

I came home to geranium plants on the front porch – a gift from a neighbor who said “they were on sale.”  Thank you, I know they will be lovely all summer.

My husband and I sat on the patio late in the afternoon – dragging out last year’s lawn chairs we sat out back in the sunshine until time to cook a late supper.  He’d been traveling for most of the last week and it was a time for renewal for our relationship.  The brilliant red of a cardinal on the fence stopped the conversation. 

Renewal.  Spring is a time when winter has ended and the hot winds of summer have not hit.  It is to be enjoyed to the fullest. Time a for a renewal of the spirit.

What did you do this first weekend that was almost spring?