Oklahoma Dreaming: First Spring

by Donna Schoenkopf

last time: animal farm

After spending ALL weekend barely moving, just eating and watching TV (on which I watched my hero, Barack Obama, get punched around by all the networks over his preacher's flamboyant and revolutionary remarks ... all of which I agree with, by the way), I kicked my lazy butt off the bed out of sheer guilt, picked up the large ziplock storage bag FULL of redbud seed pods, sent by darling Priscilla after I confessed to killing the redbud seedlings she had transported all the way from Austin, Texas to plant at Chigger Lake, put on my Earth Shoes (thank you, Margo), and went out into the brisk afternoon.

I love Priscilla. She writes to me to tell me how much she likes these columns, and then writes about something she was reminded of and it takes my breath away, it is so beautiful.

And I love Margo. She broke BOTH her ankles skiing years ago and gets horrible arthritis, so she bought these shoes because they made her stretch her achilles tendon, but her doctor told her it was exactly the wrong thing to do so she gave the shoes to me. I have worn those shoes for years now.

ANYWAY, out I went, miniature pick axe and seed bag in hand to plant redbud trees.

I started on the hill outside the eastern wall of my house. It is a beautifully shaped (by Peewee) hill, barren. A perfect place for a couple of redbuds. Whack! My pick axe just bounced off the concrete that calls itself Oklahoma red clay soil. Then I got serious. I will not let the damn soil deter me. Whack, whack, whack, whack. I've made a hole barely deep enough to lay a seed pod in. Scrape the rocky soil over the pod and stomp on it. One redbud down. Half a million to go.

I continued smacking the earth and laying the little cradle of seeds in the shallow hole and then stomping dirt on them for a while, working my way back around to the north side of the house. It'll look real purdy sometime in the next few years. Billows of pink-red-lilac colored blossoms from head to toe. Like bridesmaids in their fancy dresses.

I needed to do it today because a thunderstorm is predicted for tonight. The seeds will be watered REAL good from the storm and if I don't do it today I will be trapped in a sea of red mud for a few days after the rain.

The last storm scared me really really really really badly.

Lightning danced around my house all night long. 7,688 lightning hits were recorded in one hour. I knew I was going to die. I cowered in my bathroom for two hours. There I was in a METAL house with TONS of glass on three sides on TOP of a hill, with NO windbreak. Finally I came to bed, turned off the lights, and lay there looking at the lightning. At one point a flash of red-orange light blazed over me near the ceiling and instantly BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!!!! overhead so loud that Rosie the Cat jumped straight up in the air from her sleeping position on my bed.

I swear it struck my roof!

That night I remembered how I kept pooh-poohing everyone who looked scared when I told them what I was going to build (a metal house with lots of windows) ... and where (Tornado Alley!). I had ignored all their good advice and put my life on the line JUST BECAUSE I WANTED A GORGEOUS VIEW.

HOW COULD I BE SO DUMB????????????????

ANYWAY, I have learned why people dig holes in the ground to live in.

But these are the thoughts of a person in the middle of the night when everything looks scary and hopeless.

In the morning, between the thunderstorms, I watched Spring settle in over the hills.

The grass is sending its brilliant green spears out of the red clay.

Every kind of bird has arrived. Today I saw a bright red cardinal sitting on the bare branches of the cottonwood tree outside my windows. Then a blue jay flew up, followed by a triplet of chickadees, so cute you would have laughed out loud. Then a dozen tiny little finches flew across the sky in a cluster and zipped onto the bare branches of the oaks by the pond. There are no leaves yet on the trees, so all their actions are plain to see. They all flit and swoop and dive from tree to tree.

And the SONGS. Glorious mockingbirds, robins, screeching jays, songs I've never heard before—tweets and too-whees and brip-brips and tralalalalas.

At night, in the inky blackness, starting about a week ago, I heard the quacking and chattering of ducks on my pond. At least I think they were ducks. It's what I think ducks would sound like if they were camping out there. LOTS of ducks. And last night I heard the enormous, swelling choir of baby frogs. At least I think they were frogs. I thought it was coming from the TV. But the music didn't go with the action of the story. So I muted the sound and realized the music was coming from outside. I slid open my door and the sound reverberated all around me. It filled the air. It was melodious. The frogs sang in harmony, like the Hallelujah Chorus. There were tenors and sopranos and altos. It swelled and folded in on itself and blended and separated. I was so amazed I called Grandson Jimmy, and held the phone out into the darkness, but he said he could only hear a slight buzzing.

So Spring has soothed the raveled sleeve of care and made me glad that I'm here on top of the world, in Nature Undefiled, getting to taste the sweetness of her creation.

But when I think about thunderstorms, I cringe and cower and wish I hadn't been so STUPID.

next: inside the storm