Only the Good Friday, March 12, 2010

Maybe we'll return to the desert this Summer. This scene from last years trip to Utah


I’ve been absent from the Only the Good Friday posts for a while. The meme Only the Good Friday is a brainstrom of Shelly over at This Electic Life blog. Just had other things on my plate, or my blog, and didn’t do the Friday thing. Not that there wasn’t anything “Good” going on. I’m sure there was, and not just on Friday either.

To me, the best “Good” thing happening right now, this Friday and every day this week, has been the melting of the snow up here in the Northland. It has been a slow melt. There was a lot of snow on the ground on March First. Now, large patches are muddy ground or brown grass with a green tinge. The largest of the piles in parking lots and next to driveways are but small mounds, and these in the areas on earth where the sun doesn’t shine directly because of the earth’s rotation or the trees and the shade they create.

After the sun last week, we got the rain this week. Not pouring rain, not a downpour, just a nice slow steady cadence of rain, washing the streets of salt and sand residue. That’s really “Good” for us motorcycle types that want to get the bikes out. Those streets and roads need to be cleansed a bit of all that loose debris in the turns. The first rains make the roads slick and oily when the water mixes with the leftovers of winter maintenance. The rains make such a difference.


Skateboards and Bicycles. As you can see, plenty of sunshine and plenty of snow to melt

There is plenty of mud. Care must be taken to get the boots off before stepping into the house from outside. The areas around the dogs are trampled down and thick mud holes are all around them. They don’t seem to mind. The dogs just walk right through it all to greet the kids or get to the hand that’s feeding them. The cats are a little more careful, but the paw prints show where they’ve been walking on the counter and my desk. That may not sound so “Good”, but what is “Good” is the process of the seasons making a change.


Electric Scooters

I find it a pleasure when Spring turns to Summer and then to Fall and back again to Winter. Each season having a reason. Spring is the rebirth. This is the messiest, but it is the best. Trees come alive after being dormant. Leaves pop out, flowers push up from the Sacred Earth Mother, sap flows from the ground into the limbs and the branches feed us with fresh oxygen.


Our best friend Sonya paid us a visit. Sonya is from Colorado. It was very "Good" to see her

The streams swell with water from the rain and the snow melt and clean themselves out, sort of like a cleanse that one would take to clean out the intestines, a flushing of the old and mold to make room for the “Good” stuff.

Man intervenes with the clock change this weekend. Spring ahead. At 2:00 a.m., the official time for making the adjustment, we’re to move the hands of time ahead one hour. We lose 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. It never exists. But we now have daylight well past 7:00 p.m. And that gets later every day! Up North where I am, it’s light until 9:30 in June. Twenty Four hours of sun in the Northern reaches of Alaska.


Kids like hanging around Papa when he works on his motorcycle

But the “Good” is that now, oldest Grand daughter walks to the school bus in daylight. Not in darkness like she did all Winter. Seemed so early to leave the house in pitch blackness. Soon, the birds will be singing loudly by 5:00 a.m. She’ll have company along with her on the short jaunt to Kennedy and Short.

Yes, it’s all “Good” except where it floods. That’s not so appreciated in those neighborhoods, especially when there are injuries and any loss of life or property. But people can get prepared. They usually know if a Spring flood is coming. Not like a flash flood that strikes without a warning.

I like what’s happening outside these days. Not that I didn’t like parts of the Winter, but it was long and kept me inside looking out, wishing for something to do. Time to get outside and assess the situation. That’s “Good”

Peace to all