Belated Printemps

This was the first year in a while when I did not have the chance to savor the arrival of Spring by getting in on the first appearance of Skunk Cabbage, one of my classic harbingers.  Last year I posted on the subject in early April.  I did squeeze in a visit to one of my standard SC monitoring venues a couple weeks ago, in the spirit of a make-up call, trying to cover for the fact that I'd dropped the ball and missed the early show.

So this is sort of a make-up post, featuring other Spring-like and otherwise fertile things (and some not-so-much), but with the general goal of marking the start down the slippery slope towards Summer, that season that at least for me has most changed from childhood.  Of course it used to mean being unfettered, something I can't imagine now.

As for late Spring, dutiful attention to astral events seems to go with the season, especially if you are a gardener.  I and the better half both noted the high zaniness factor at work in the last couple days, and lo there is a Full Moon this week.  I did also observe one of those optical effects while gardening recently (taking rare look up rather than down), these things reputedly resulting from ice crystals way up there somewhere.

And talk about a sign of Spring.  Here comes Else, daughter of Eric's chums Phil and Amy, born May 21 as I have it.  She is quite the charmer, even without opening her eyes.  Else is still in that state where she seems (my very limited experience) to tolerate everyone.  Would that this could last.  Perhaps that is partly her parent's wonderful generosity in sharing her.  Their record has only a couple of what I gather must be at least several dozen visitors refraining from holding her!  It wasn't quite the same when we were young parents.  But probably that is partly because my most recent memory is from our premie, when visits and direct contact were tightly controlled.

I'm normally pretty locked into being in the office, other than my program of walking at lunch as much as I can.  Making time to be outdoors is pretty important to me, but as a project manager, they tell me I am responsible for everything (obviously a cue-card allowing for the seemingly ENRON-envious managers above me to be non-accountable for anything), and thus prolonged absences are offensive to these folks.

But I was asked to spend a couple days last week in the open air, far from the wild setting I would have chosen, but at least not with managed air.  Outside!  I was dubbed as the buffer for regulatory rep while we sampled marine sediments at a site we are investigating for client.  Given that the site is an active commercial marina, it was exciting to observe what appeared to be a trey-some family of ospreys, a bald eagle, a river otter, and harbor seals.

Flying solo last Friday, Marg being festive with her Mom's group, I indulged in some cranberry beans with our own home-smoked Tasso ham and Hatch chilies preserved last Fall.  There's something subliminally satisfying about being able to employ these home ingredients.