Kaze Hikaru

Yep, spring is in the air.  Half the world is waking from the dark, cold winter months.  It is a time of rebirth, renewal and awakening.  Many trees are blossoming and early flowers have pushed through the earth.  Things are coming to life!  This week was the Spring Equinox, time when the sun crosses the plane of the earth's equator, making night and day approximately equal in length.





People are experiencing spring fever, which used to refer to an actual illness.  As the weather turns warm, we (myself included) develop sore throats, headaches, and stuffy noses.  More commonly now, “Spring fever” describes a restless feeling after the short days of a long, cold winter.  Common “symptoms” include not being able to focus on work, wanting to be outside... playing, taking long walks, gardening, riding, golfing, etc.  We also associate this 'sickness' with love that's in the air.  Wildlife is acting goofy, and actually many animals are giving birth from earlier times of 'lovin'.  My sister's ewes started lambing the end of last week, and it has been fun to hear about and get photos of their progress.  Photo of one set of triplets with their mom.


Saturday I was up a little before 6:00 and noticed the sky was getting light to the east, in spite of the rain clouds.  I walked Maggie in the rain with thunder and lightening occurring in the distance, which caused her some angst.  So it was a short, quick walk. 

I had planed to spend the majority of the day working on my cruise blog, but the predicted rain was to no avail and I got struck by spring fever.  I had opened all the doors to our porches and enjoyed lunch out there.

And then if that wasn't enough goofing off, I laid out on the deck and read for over two hours.  Also, a little cat nap occurred.  It wasn't quite 70 degrees out, but the warm rays of the sun felt so good.

I walked Maggie on four holes of the golf course, since we both needed the exercise.  Then I made a quick trip to Family Dollar and Dollar General to get some St. Patrick's Day accessories.

I found a long, green, light weight sweater at Family Dollar and some dollar stuff at Dollar General to accessorize my attire for the night.

Once home I got ready and then picked Patty up and we headed to R-Place.  Shirley joined us a little bit later.

It was their St. Patrick's Day party with the Jeff Allen band playing and lots of green decorations, including green beer.  

We sat with several of  'the girls' and had a fun time, especially dancing (video).  Joe's poker game fell through (not enough guys to play) so he arrived a few hours late, but in plenty of time to join in on the fun.
 



Unfortunately, a fight between two guys (with cops and ambulance on the scene) broke up the party early. 

Patty, Shirley, and Joe went home but I went with several others, on to Red's, where more fun and dancing occurred.

I was up at 5am Sunday, even though it was after midnight when I went to bed.  But I took a little nap before Church. 

Then I had an early lunch and headed to the barn where I was going to meet a lady.  I got Amiga, brushed her up and had her ready for the meeting.  I rode her bareback and let her graze out front while waiting for my friend to arrive.

When I got word that my friend would not be able to make it after all, I took Amiga for a ride.  We did some trails, worked on obstacles in the bean field, and rode around the barn yard.  I got off, after almost two hours bareback, and could really feel it in my legs.

Maggie and I went to Patty's house and we all took a walk together.  I just snacked for dinner because Joe was gone, at a poker game.  Too tired to blog, I watched TV and read before bed.

Rain was predicted to occur off and on all day Monday, so it was going to be a blogging day.  However, we only had a few little pop-up showers.  Although it was cloudy and gloomy most of the day.

Lots of time was spent here at my computer, but I was only able to complete one full day of our cruise on that blog.  I did enjoy the birds coming and going.  This Bluebird got impatient waiting on the Morning dove.








I saw Patty at Ballroom Aerobics, lifted weights (just arms) and ran to Food City on the way home. 

The afternoon was spent blogging, reading, napping, tidying-up the house, and walking Maggie for a half hour.  Joe grilled steaks for dinner and I made a sweet potato dish and salad.  We watched a movie before bed as a thunderstorm rolled in.

Joe was on the road 30 minutes after I got up Tuesday morning, heading to Mississippi where he was meeting Greg for hiking, golf, and you guessed it - two poker tournaments.

Maggie had this bed all scrunched up underneath her for a morning nap.  It rained off and on part of the day, as predicted and stayed very cloudy.  I don't recall ever seeing the sunshine.


The pond was quite muddy from the torrential rains we had overnight.



I made a quick trip to Shirley's mid morning where Patty and I went to pick up a house key and instructions for cat care the following week.

Druid was closed for aeriation, and they were working on #17 just after noon.  Notice how gloomy the skies were.

I got dressed to go workout, and then while walking Maggie, decided to skip the gym and just take her on a long walk.  We did five holes of Druid and got rained on coming down the 17th fairway towards home.  Once inside, I got into dry PJs and sat by the fire reading, drying off, and warming up.

Judy posted this photo of Chester and Boz, the Wildwood Stable Welcoming Committee.  They were sitting there waiting for action, which because of the weather, never really happened.

I did a makeshift corn beef and cabbage dish (all the store had was lunch meat) in the microwave and really enjoyed it for dinner.  I like to cook what I like when Joe is gone.  He had cooked himself fish while I was gone on the cruise, so it works well for both of us.

I was so tired of blogging, and so into my Patricia Cornwell book, that reading took precedence until bedtime.  It was sleeting during our last dog walk.

There was an inch of snow on the deck when I stepped outside with the dog at 5:45 Wednesday morning, and it was still coming down.




The walk, driveway, and roads were just wet.  But the snow cover made most things pretty.

I took Hobo some dry food.  He/she was happy to see me.

The ducks also swam over when I went down back with the corn and they were up on the bank eating it before I got very far back up the hill.

It continued to snow and I just sat here blogging, looking out the window, and periodically taking photos.

I had sat in this chair, in shorts and t-shirt, eating lunch and taking photos of the cats and dog, just four days earlier.  But now the kaze hikaru was all gone. 😒 

I skipped Ballroom Aerobics with the intent of going to the gym later, but that never happened.  In fact, I stayed in my loungers all day!

I and the critters just laid low, me blogging and reading, they mostly napped.  When I went out for a dog walk in the afternoon, I decided to get some photos.  It had been snowing most of the day and you can see quite a bit accumulated on this bush.

But much of it had also been melting because the ground temperature was too warm and the air temperature had stayed right around 32 degrees.  I decided to try to capture the beauty, or sadness, of snow covered flowers.

forsythia

cherry

hyacinth and crabapple

lenton rose and daffodil




This is the look I get from all three when it is getting close to dinner time.  I tried to ignore it for quite awhile, but gave in 30 minutes early.  I was getting a sore neck and back from sitting at my desk too long, and my brain was tired of the whole cruise blogging process, especially the difficulties in getting text and photos to appear where I wanted them.  As you can see, I was having the same frustration doing this week's blog.  So after we all had dinner, I switched to reading.  Once I finished my book I then watched two episodes of Fixer Upper.

Thursday was a beautiful sun shiny morning, but only 27 degrees when I got up at 6am.  I like that the sun is up so early now.

I love watching the action of wildlife outside my window as I sit here at my computer.  But today around 7am, work started down by the spillway of the turtle pond dam.





I kept watch as I kept blogging.  Eventually they worked their way along the whole dam, clearing all the cattail from along its edge.  I like how this cleans up the look, even though some natural habitat has been removed.  The cattail have only been there for a few years, and like at our end of the pond, they keep taking over more and more.




During our long morning walk, Maggie and I went down to the pond to check out the work after the crew had left.  The aeriation crew had also put more sand on the green.








Farther down the fairway toward the tee-box, we spotted this snowman.  It must have been built the day before, and I just love people's sense of humor.

At noon I headed into town, to Casa Grande, where I met up with my saddle sisters for lunch.  Seen left, going clockwise, are:  Jean, Judi, Shirley, Deanna, me, Patty, Jo, Jan, Judy, and Cheryl.

We had a great time talking, eating, and just hanging out.  Our party broke up about 2:30 and I headed to Tractor Supply for deer/duck corn.  I couldn't help being drawn to the baby chicks.  They are always a sure sign of spring, and give me that warm, fuzzy feeling.








I spent a long time at K-Mart which has been in the process of selling everything - going out of business.  Merchandise was now 70% off, but very limited and picked over.  I spent 48 bucks on clothing and household supplies, saving nearly $77.00.  I also ran to Wal-Mart to get groceries and supplies I couldn't find at K-Mart.

It was 5:15pm when I got home and I did a quick dog walk, fed everybody, unloaded and unpacked what I had hunted and gathered at the stores and then met Patty and Jean at the 4-way stop at 6:15.  We went back into town where we met Judy to listen to Shirley in the CCC band.  I was home by 9 and in bed by 10.

Friday was another cold, gloomy day with rain forecasted in the afternoon.  I didn't take a single photo all day so have used some taken earlier this week.  I was trying to talk myself into riding with Jan, but discovered the pair of shoes I bought at K-Mart for 70% off consisted of two right shoes.  I had tried one right shoe on at the store and just figured the left would fit and didn't even notice it was also a right shoe until trying to put it on my left foot here at home.  UGH! 

Since K-Mart is closing soon and merchandise is flying off the shelves, I decided I needed to go back right away.  So after lunch, off I went, back to town to K-Mart.  They would only let me exchange the shoe, not return the pair.  But I could not find a left one after searching high and low and everywhere in between.  I was able to talk them into letting me exchange the two right shoes for a different pair, but could not find anything I really liked.  Multipurpose, black tennis shoes is what I ended up with.  And then I did more shopping for more bargains while I was there.

By the time I got home, it was almost dinner time and I was feeling the day had pretty much been a big waste.  In fact, the whole week was fairly unproductive.  I was not proud of myself for only making it to the gym one day this week, for still not getting the cruise blog done, and for snacking on so much junk food.  This just means I am going to have to be a lot more intentional next week.

Carol took this photo a few days ago of her most recent birth.  What a cute little lamb.  She has seven ewes done and nine more yet to deliver.