Spring Break

I am off to visit the Smithsonian Museums with the wonder boy for an entire week. Get out there and enjoy the arrival of spring. Whether it is just your backyard, a city park, or a local nature preserve where real native plants are doing their spring thing, there will be something new and different every single day this time of year. It is yours to enjoy and marvel at and wonder about, so get out there and do it. Remember to pause now and then to breath deeply enough to gather in the spring fragrances, the moist soil coming alive, the green things beginning to grow again, maybe even the fragrance of some spring wildflowers. Remember to touch things, to feel the soft of a newly unfurled leaf, the moist of the leaf litter on the ground, the rough of the bark of the tree by the path. Vision is our dominant sense, so in order to appreciate the richness of the many directions of sound around us, it helps to close your eyes and listen. Can you hear birds calling, then others in another direction answering? Sometimes you can hear popping as frost leaves the ground or lighter noises as water moves through the soil. Trees lean and creak in the breeze and dried leaves from last year rustle. Just get out there and see what you can find!