I have started to take short walks in the neighborhood–just 10-15 minutes each morning. It feels good to be moving again and hopefully building my strength. I especially get energy from the birds singing so exuberantly. There are cardinals all over the neighborhood.

This morning, from our backyard I saw several cardinals chasing each other through some tangled branches. They especially like the plot of undeveloped land next to the back of our yard, that we call the “fairy field.” Sadly, it is filled with invasive bittersweet and multi-flora rose that Margy is trying to curb, but it does make for lots of brush up to higher branches, and the cardinals seem happy there. Perhaps they are young males trying to establish their own territory.

Or perhaps they, too, are merely feeling the exuberance of warmer air and brighter days, and can’t keep from singing.

More beauty: some of the pond plants are starting to green up. Especially the blue flag iris. No frogs yet, but I go back and check each day just to see when they might arrive. Only a few of the stones were dislodged during the ice of winter. When it rained the last couple days, there was flooding all along the back yard area beyond the pond, and an overflowing “drain.” But it didn’t seem to be a problem. I hope all of the plants from last year will come back. I am also hoping to add some Marsh Marigold when it comes in to our local nursery. This will be our first spring with the pond, and so it is all an adventure, a slow, curious, waiting kind of adventure.