It's probably safe to put these away

though I'm superstitious enough to think it will be best to leave them there for just a little while.

Spring always startles me. You wait and wait through false starts and regressions, wondering whether it will ever really come. And then one day, boom!, it's here; and you know in your bones that, no matter what the weather does for the rest of March, some corner has been definitively turned. Sunday was like that, and I've spent much of the last three days out in the yard, beginning the cleanup.



On the right side of the picture: ground covered with leaves and overgrown with grass (and other weeds). On the left side of the picture: ground muddy, but relatively clear. This isn't all that I've accomplished in three days. I did the bed along the front sidewalk first. There's a good bit off to the right (at least twice what you see here) that I haven't touched. Hope the weather holds. It's spring. I'll swear by that. But this is Wisconsin.