Spring Break Fever

Has it been ten days already since we all last had classes. More than that, about six weeks, since I have found time to provide any updates. The thing about winter in Florida is that it plays a deceptive hand. Some days rainy and cool overcast and even a frost, and then a teasing almost springlike for weeks. Finally this past week we got rain. A lot of it. Since then, three days of sun.

Outback, the coral honeysuckle have begun to bloom, deep orange pedals with bright yellow stamen. In the winds that blew on Thursday, a large Bromeliad tillandsia was forced out of an elbow in the live oak and fell to the ground. It is an endangered plant species, so we installed it on the trellis as well, affixing it with wire on the north side of the lattice. Maxim also decide it was time to tent and when she could not convince me to pull out the real camping tent, she made one of her own.

On Friday, Maxim turned ten. 10. She invited about ten girls and they had a dance contest, a water balloon fight, got to swing on the tire swing and get sprayed, ate pizza and cake, and then went out to the movies with Lanita, Alana's mom. Yesterday she attended her friend Sophia's birthday party, after spending the afternoon ice skating with another friend. Birthday weekend. Noah mentioned his desire to drive all of the girls except his sister out of the yard after a few hours, but he had Demarco, Brandon, and Jonah to play with on the side. And they all got cake, water balloons, and a swing on the tire swing of cold water, too.

But he's eight, so he doesn't see it quite like that. He's a boy who loves superlatives, and comparisons, out of which the true essence of things emerge. "I didn't have this many kids at my birthday party," he says forlornly. "You had exactly as many." I remind him. "Not if you don't count sisters and friends. I didn't have this many girls!" he says with extra emphasis and contempt on the last word. But Noah is doing well in the real world. He is enjoying playing baseball and he and the boys in the neighborhood play epic games of get the bad guy around the houses with their nerf plastic rifles and the dogged seriousness of pre-adolescent boys. Sometimes they don't even notice I am walking among them. The game just goes on.

And then there's Marcela, who has just received the largest painting in the world to fix and preserve in her small studio. It is called "I Don't Paint Feet," and she has been commissioned by Saratoga County to stabilize it, repair it where possible, and house it for display. Four years ago, Papa and I built a work bench for Marcela (2' x 5'). This painting exceded its size (it is 3'9" x 6'10"), so this morning, I went to the lumber yard and got a nice piece of hardwood plywood to provide enough surface for the work she intends to do. The piece needs flattening, repairs with Japanese paper, and work on the painting side, too. It's exactly the sort of project Marcela trained for in Buenos Aires. She is excited and nervous and ready to get started. I am excited fo her.

And then there's me. I'm good. Six more weeks until summer. :)

KAC

The Sounds of Spring
Hundreds of migrating robins descended on my backyard this morning.  After weeks of grey and overcast and dreary weather, these sounds of spring light up the air.  Here is a short clip of the music filling our day here in St. Petersburg.  We'll remind them to continue north if they stick around too long.  Enjoy:

Winter Grey
The overcasts of January and February. Cool and even chilly air. Sometimes rain, but clearly not enough. We have some of the mildest weather of the contiguous United States, which explains the filled up roadways and endless false turn-signals everywhere I go, but except for a day or two here or there, winter has not delivered a very sunny face this 2011. The storms that have battered almost the whole of the other 47 states, have also pulled moisture from our climate. Day after day of not enough rain and not enough sun.

The changes have come, nevertheless. The stump, you might note, is completely gone. Burned out at last and now used as the burial ground for the Spanish moss that drops intermittently into the yard. The whole scene looks dead or dying, but the truth is that if you were to bend down close and look between the dead pieces, you would see that everything has suddenly started to grow again. (Which strikes me as fine metaphor for the happenings in North Africa, if I may digress.) Seeds are sprouting everywhere, vines and trees are pushing out their buds. Another week, or three, and this landscape will be more obviously turned toward spring.

The start of spring means changes for the kids, both of whom have been playing soccer in the Southside League since late fall. Maxim did not have a very productive season. Her coach was a 16-year-old high school soccer player who had a difficult time seeing the U-10 girls as anything other than little kids. And the absence of leadership took the spirit out of her team. Noah on the other hand, who seems to want to fulfill his mother's dream of playing for the Argentine national soccer team, has been chosen to play on the U-8 All star team, playing for a regional championship in two weeks. He also started baseball, with tryouts last week and formal practices beginning this past Wednesday. He's not very focused when he's in around the house. But put him on a playing field, and he seems to come alive with attention. Today he scored four of the nine goals scored by his team. Maxim, for her part, has decided to return to dancing. She reminds me of me when I was in my early teens. She wants to be a performer. Unlike me, however, she has some genuine talent. She is artistically very brave and creative. She wrote her first real song this week "On Your Side" by Maxim:

And the rest of us, Marcela and me and the two cats, one dog, and one goldfish, continue along our way. Marcela has been working for the Pinellas County School system as a substitute teacher. Last week in a third grade classroom, after she returned from escorting one of the students out of the room, a young girl had her hand raised. Marcela called on her and she said, "Dariem said that you were a green toad when you were outside." Without missing a beat, Marcela acted surprised and exclaimed, "He did! How did you know Dariem?" To which a third child said with wonder and perhaps a small amount of fear, "Are you really a green toad." "Yes I am," she said in her delightful Argentinean accent. "Do know Lake Maggiore? That's where I live. When I leave here I'll turn back into a toad and hop on home." There was a pregnant, uncertain pause and then one of the students, Olivia, who was in pre-K with Noah and has been to our house, shouted, "Noooo! I know where she lives. I know where her house is, she isn't a green toad! She isn't!" And another looked at Marcela and asked again, "Are you really? or Aren't you?" "She's not! She a person!" And, so, as you can imagine, she got along pretty well with the kids after that.

Out in the yard things are starting to flower. This Spanish needle, a native annual flowering plant, some would call it a weed, is blooming everywhere and is the greenest thing in the landscape at the moment.

This potted plant has also just sent up its first flower. An orange sunset of a bloom, but not yet fully exposed to the day. Perhaps tomorrow.

Our butterfly flower, a colorful milkweed and the favorite plant of Monarch butterflies, has itself decide to begin a blooming cycle once again. You can see the giant pods containing feathery seeds as well as the reddish orange future flowers to its left.

And our beach sunflower has been blooming like the Spanish needles, at a steady rate for weeks, well-adapted to the varied winter climate.

Spring will not formally arrive, according to our shared calendar, for about six more weeks. But here on this heap of sand covered limestone, spring is upon us, the snow banks are melting, rivers are swelling, and the air is thick with a nose-swelling pollen. We welcome the arriving season with a renewed spirit of hopefulness and an anticipation of great things to come.