While We Wait, We Observe

Well, welcome to another lush spring day in Lloyd, Florida.
This is what it looks like from my back porch steps.

Wasn't I just bitching about how brown everything still was?
What can I say? It was a valid point then.

But the trigger has been pulled and there is no denying it now. We are firmly and delightedly in spring.

The tung trees are beginning to bloom. They are just fucking exquisite, their blossoms such a pale peach and the way the flowers float on the tree is nothing short of an ancient Chinese silk painting. This tiny flower is not yet all the way opened but it probably will be in a few hours.

And guess what? It is time to kick the bamboo!
Yep.
And that stuff grows so fast. Yesterday I didn't see one shoot sticking up, today it looks as if the bamboo gods have been beneath the earth, puncturing it with their bamboo knives. It's sticking up everywhere. Here's one that in the space of 24 hours has popped up AND managed to grow its little head of green-sprout hair.

I need to get Owen back out here in his boots to kick the sprouts over. It's the only way to control the growth of it. And it's not an unpleasant pastime, to walk around and kick the bamboo.

So no, no, Lily is not in labor. She is back at work. I talked to her this morning. She really thought it might begin to happen last night but no, it didn't. And so...we wait.
Jessie got in at two-thirty a.m. and is still asleep upstairs. I haven't seen her yet, but found her note in the kitchen, saw her car in the drive.
And so, here we are. Waiting but not anxious. There is much to do. The garden can take all the tending we want to give it, the yard could use attention. The house could use cleaning from top to bottom. I need to get my glasses readjusted. All the tiny details that take our time and attention are available, as always, for distraction.
And of course, there is that bamboo to kick.

Here is Elvis in midcrow, showing his fluffy butt.

Mr. Moon and I looked at all the eggs last night with the lightbulb and the coffee can to see what we could see inside of them and except for the brown and green eggs which we cannot see through, we could see moving life inside them all. So Elvis is going to be a daddy, at least to the chickens from the eggs laid by our hens and we hope he will be a good stepfather or uncle to the banty chicks. We shall see.

All, as they say, will be revealed.

Perhaps not today, but soon. I just realized that we haven't asked Jason and Lily what sort of a tree they want to get to be planted over the baby's placenta. Something, I would assume, that is blooming now and what a world of trees to pick from.
A dogwood is always nice.

Well, there you go. No real news except for the subtle kind, the peachy blossoms of the tung, the upward thrusting of the bamboo, the movement in eggs of coming-chicks, the purple littering of the side yard with wisteria petals, the first beans in the garden to push up through the soil, last night's gentle rain, Jessie's arrival home.

It'll all do for today. We are given reason to celebrate, even as we wait.