I have always felt happily at home with dirt on my knees, though never, in all of my wildest dreams, would I have ever imagined the variety of the wonderful tools that would become my dirt-working companions today. 

Fleabane is a wildflower to some, a weed to others, and then there are those who even choose to plant it in their gardens. This has been such a wonderful spring for wildflowers here in the creek valley, perhaps because of the cool weather, but no matter the reason, fleabane is blooming everywhere.

Our hearts are not so much warmed by the small spherical glass orbs, as they are warmed by the people that these small orbs share with us, and of course, I smiled.

Dogwood winters occur in the last half of April, and are marked by flowering dogwoods, cold nights and a heavy morning frost.

All throughout the valley, my eye catches on countless beautiful spring wildflowers that seem to vie for my attention. It is really difficult to get anything done. I just want to stop whatever I might be doing and sit down among them.

As Greg and I walked out the door of the century old pump house, the four triple-steam engines resting quietly behind me, I thought of my Nana. I so wished that I could call her up, and tell her about my amazing day and the 104-foot tall engines that had been constructed inside a pump house that rests six feet below the river’s bottom.

Once I learned that chocolate-covered, peanut butter candies were called moose eyes by folks in the northeast, I began to wonder how the candy really got its name in my neck of the woods.

On yesterday’s walk along the creek, I noticed that the buckeye trees were just beginning to wake up. Fat, red buds were swelling at their branch ends. I could see that some of the buds had even unfurled into close clusters of tiny, feathered leaves, and I was reminded of a story from several years ago when Greg and I drove east to visit my brother and his wife in the far northeastern mountains.

Of course, I love the color green. It does rhyme with Christine, after all, but honestly, there is another so very important reason why I hold this color near and hold near and dear to my heart.

If we had never dared to dream, we would never have had the chance to see our dreams come true. I now know that it won’t be long at all before we pack up our toothbrushes and carry them across the gravel driveway to move into what really is our dream home.

It seems that I have always known the expression “make hay while the sun still shines” and understood it to mean that one should take advantage of the chance to do something while the conditions for doing so are favorable. I now know that understanding – and really knowing – are actually quite different.