Spring Has Sprung

by Donna Schoenkopf

This morning I awoke to an orchestra of birdsong. It literally woke me up.

It didn’t hurt that I had all my sliding glass doors open, eight of them. They were open because it was in the mid 80s yesterday and the evening had been balmy and sweet.

I was sound asleep in my little beddie, when a mockingbird began its miraculous opera, followed by chirpings and callings and songs and whoop-dee-dooos from all kinds of other birds.

It was real purdy. What a fabulous way to start the day. Sun coming up in the east, setting the sky on fire, birds thrilling me awake.

Lovely.

Yes, it’s just turning into Spring around here. I cannot tell you how I love the seasons. Having been without them for 42 years, I was season-starved. The monotony of the sun-filled days of California just sort of drove me crazy. If it rained in the winter, which was the only deviation from a sunny day, it was a big damn deal and I would take my students out in it for splashing and dancing and singing purposes.

A story about how much I love rain:

I reiterate, every year my students would be taken out to the playground whenever it rained. I would always sing, “I LOOOOOOOOOVE the rain!!” And they would sing it, too.

Many years later, I was standing in a really long line at the airport, waiting to be scanned. It was raining outside. I inched my way up, till finally I was alongside a handsome young man in his airport suit jacket. Somebody said something about the rain and I just automatically said, “I LOOOOOVE the rain!” and the handsome young man looked at me and said, “Mrs. Schoenkopf?”

He was a student from 15 years earlier.

Awwwwww.

ANYWAY, THAT’S how much I love rain.

So it’s Spring around here. It’s tiptoeing in.

Or should I say, dropping from the sky.

Ducks have arrived. Early in the morning they plummet down out of the sky and crash into the pond. Their landings are hilarious. Their little butts hang low as they begin their descent, their wings, like arms, keep them aloft, and then down they ... SPLASH!

At first there were only four and now there are sixteen. They swim, leaving little wakes behind them. They bob for a little smackeral, turning up their little white bottoms. They quack. Together. It is very musical.

At first, when I would step outside onto my new deck and look down the hill at the pond full of ducks, they would blast away. But now they know me and just keep paddling.

But the hawks are scaring me. About four days ago, late one afternoon, Rosie the Cat was trotting home down my gravel driveway. She is a camouflage cat. Like a rabbit. As she neared the house, a GIANT hawk, wing span of at least four feet, started a swoop toward her. It got to within twenty feet of her.

My heart stood still, but my feet and hands leapt into action.  I threw open the sliding glass door, yelling at the top of my lungs at the hawk. It veered mid-flight from its trajectory and flapped back up into the sky.

Rosie the cat

Yesterday I saw another (the same?) hawk flying low, about three or four feet from the ground IN the woods where Rosie hangs out during the day. I never knew hawks could negotiate their flight through a thickly wooded area. But this one did. It was silent and predatory. It was looking for something to eat. It was looking for Rosie.

You should know that Rosie never comes home before late afternoon and sometimes much later, so she hadn’t gotten home when I left to go see my darling nephews’ production of The Wizard of Oz.  (Mini review: It was fabulous. Oh, my GOD!) I didn’t get home until almost midnight.

No Rosie.

I kept seeing that hawk in my mind’s eye, flying low in the woods. I was mentally saying goodbye to her when I heard her little mew outside the sliding glass door.

Rosie! My darling cat!

Purr-purr-purrrrrrr. Lots of goodies for you, my little cupcake.

And this morning the green grass sprouted overnight. Here, there and everywhere. It glows with chlorophyll. The Bermuda grass (or Bermooda grass, Oklahoma pronunciation) has sent its tendrils across the red clay dirt. The dichondra seeds I threw on the ground last September have germinated and are poking their little heads through the soil.

I’m gonna throw some clover out there next week. I’ve dreamed of that.

I’m going to stop now. The birds are singing so gloriously that I must stop and pay attention.

Wish you were here.

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