What a glorious week this has been to celebrate St. Pat’s. It’s also grand that the Irish Festival has returned to Clare after a two year absence. The luck of the Irish has been rewarded. After a wee bit ‘o rough weather, we all have been rewarded with a taste of spring and temperatures above fifty degrees. What a treat, however brief. Old Sol will win soon enough and the dirty snow will be gone.
That unmistakable evening call of robins echoed across our new yard on Wednesday evening. Red-winged black birds have been sighted between the middle of Winterfield and Marion. It’s only a matter of time until spring peepers test their voices. We look forward to them too. We look forward to all of the spring sights and sounds. They can’t come soon enough
We had a visit from some of our Florida Berry cousins earlier this week. Cousin Becky (my Uncle Frank Berry’s granddaughter), her husband John and their children, Tripp and Rayne, flew to Michigan from the sunny south to spend a long weekend with her uncle’s, my cousins Frank and Ray. They flew to Detroit and drove to Midland, in part so that they could enjoy the snow. Becky, John and the Kiddos, are Snow Tourists. They travel prepared to enjoy the snow with a bag full of the necessary duds and boots. And I say that in the best possible way. They love the snow and plan trips to find it. When it comes to snow, Michigan has plenty to offer.
As Becky told me, “We can go to the beach any time. And Florida temperature is rarely below 50. This is a vacation to us!” she said gesturing to the white blanket in our backyard.
“We run to the snow,” John chimed in. A few months ago they drove to Gatlinburg, TN, and caught a weekend snowstorm. They enjoyed 8” of new fluffy stuff that shut down everything and gave them a completely different look at that town. They had a wonderful time.
They explored our woods and built a giant snowman, which midweek temperatures have now reduced to a big lump of slush. Our dog had a great time with the snow-loving kids. I’m not sure who was more pooped at the end of the day, kids or dog. I know that the dog did a lot of extra napping the next day.
We were delighted with their visit. It was a treat indeed. We haven’t seen the Midland cousins in months or any younger kids, other than our own grands and great-grands in longer than we can recall. We’re hoping that they packed some extra sunshine and a heap of warm to leave in Michigan. And we’re hoping that they won’t wait too long to pay us a return visit. We’ve teased them with talk of our summer bonfires, cookouts, beaches and lakes; after all, they’re just so much liquid snow.
I cannot thank Frank enough for his expert knowledge in knowing what was wrong with my computer and the quick repair. I am beyond happy for the couple of minutes it took him to work his computer knowledge magic on my faithful desktop computer to bring it out of its deep trance. It fell silent more than a year ago, having decided to show up to the dance and be a wallflower. It made my many photo and document files untouchable; so near and yet so far. I felt it was personal every time I crossed my fingers and turned it on. It also made me angry. Most of my more recent back-up files are stored on handy compact discs, easily made and used. The new laptop, like many these days, does not have a disc drive.
Sometimes I really dislike technology. However, it was technology that, when the computer went down and before the new laptop, allowed me to peck out the Postcard on my cell phone for a few weeks. They were dark days indeed. I mourned the loss of the photos the most, and as you may have noticed, complained more than once about my inability to locate just the photo I wanted. I am beyond happy to have them all available again. I will be saving all to memory sticks, ASAP. The sad thing is that there’s sure to be some new device just around the corner so that I can be outdated once again. Now, if I can just make the old computer go on line…
