Pete's Log: Spring is in the air

Entry #1898, (Life in General)
(posted when I was 42 years old.)

The daffodils between the side of our house and the driveway are coming up. They were right on schedule, starting to come out in late February, as they've done every year. They always remind me of when we bought the house. They hadn't been there when we first viewed it, but when I came for the home inspection they were peeking out.

The other sign of spring that reminds me of buying our house (we closed on March 1, hence the association with spring) is sandhill cranes. I haven't seen or heard any yet this year, but Jamie tells me that she has.

We took JB and Boogie to the Portage for a stroll this morning. The trail still had snow and ice in places, but it was a pleasant walk. The birds were making quite the ruckus. We heard red-winged blackbirds for the first time this year and also spotted robins and cardinals among others. Although the cardinals are hardly harbingers of spring given that we see them year-round.

On the topic of cardinals, this video is worth a watch if you have any interest in state birds and enjoy surreal-yet-informative videos.

We bought ourselves a Little Free Library for Christmas, only to realize when it arrived that it would probably be a while before we'd be able to stick it in the frozen ground. After the significant warming and melting of the past week, it seemed like it was finally time to proceed. I checked with the village (no permit required so long as we don't put it on the parkway) and put in a request with the utility locator service. JB helped us assemble the actual library box today. It should look real nice in front of our house.

I took some pictures of the marked utility lines for future reference. I shall add them to my home wiki project.

I've seen various news reports about how mild the flu season was this year, and that got me thinking about how we basically haven't gotten sick all year. I think I usually get one or two colds a year, so that's been a nice side effect of lockdown, I guess. It does show that the measures being taken are effective at preventing the spread of disease. Just shows how much more contagious Covid-19 is than the common cold or flu.

I think it reflects well on JB's daycare as well. Since pre-pandemic it took all of two weeks from starting daycare until she brought the flu home. So the fact that she's not caught anything at daycare in the 7+ months she's been back says something.

Knock on wood and all...