At 8 this morning I was outside to meet the mulch delivery truck. Willy was driving today. It’s an older dump truck that holds about fifty yards. Retail places like nurseries sell  mulch by the cubic yard but I get mine from a tree company that has huge piles of hardwood mulch in various stages of decomposition. The freshest hardwood mulch takes a long time to turn into soil and the kind I buy has only been chipped two times so there are pieces of wood mixed in. I pay $75 for a truckload. Today I got two loads. It won’t be until Sunday that Oscar, Luis, and Ramon will be free from their regular job to spread it for me.

It’s a busy season. Birds, spiders, butterflies, wasps, and carpenter bees are all over the place. A baby snake wriggled right in front of my feet as I was watering some pansies. I picked him up and carried him across the road to the woods. No need to encourage snakes to live underfoot.

The septic tank pumping guy showed up between the two mulch deliveries. I’ve never had our tank pumped out before. Now there’s a job I wouldn’t want no matter how hard up I was. But he was pretty cheerful and, after telling me all the things that were wrong with where the tank was installed, how his pump won’t go more than a 27-foot rise, how the county shouldn’t have designed our system this way and on and on, he finally got down to work and everything was fine. Except as a parting shot he told me to tell whoever was using the toilets not to put tampon tubes in there. He even told me what colors had been used. This was an unexpected lesson in septics I hadn’t counted on getting for my $190. He was quite professorial.

So spring is here. And my chores are just beginning. I’ve moved some hostas, planted more fern leaf bleeding hearts, scattered seeds of an annual called Love In A Mist. It reseeds itself every fall from the pods so this is the only year I’ll be scattering them. I moved some giant ferns that have started walking themselves across my driveway. And the first hummingbird just hovered at the window where I write. She’s been here twice in the past hour. I hung the feeder a little while ago so I think she came back the second time to let me know she’d seen it.

Last Sunday, when Oscar and the others were here taking down a fallen tree, a Bald eagle flew overhead and dropped a 14-inch largemouth bass almost on Oscar’s foot. He told me he was going to take it home and make a fish stew. We cut some thyme and Greek oregano from my herb patch and he was all smiles.

What a lovely time of year. Always such a joy. The outside water is back on and now we’ll be able to use our outdoor shower again. I hope everyone is enjoying this rebirth as much as I am. And if a fish falls from the sky, make a stew for dinner.