After a lazy winter even a hint of spring brings on a flurry of activity. I finished boiling the sap for maple syrup. Of course the week after I pulled the taps the trees in the area were running again but one person can only do so much. The buckets and barrels are still waiting to be washed out for storage it's just been too cold to play with soapy water and the hose! I am going to have to figure out a better way to collect and process the sap for next year. I have lots of ideas but my husband was the tinkerer that could turn my ideas into reality. I never realized how often I'd say something and he would make it happen. He liked to putz and putter around building and fixing things.
The lakes had ice most mornings this week making it hard to do water quality testing with students. I learned that breaking up 1/2 of ice can pierce neoprene waders, another thing I'll need to do...figure out how to patch them. More field trips and the Conservation District Tree sale are on the schedule and the weather is still unseasonably cold. The camper needs a new coat of sealant, the canoe a new coat of fiberglass, the garden needs weeding to prepare for planting in June. Everywhere I look there are things that need to be done...then I sigh realizing all of these kinds of things we would have tackled together are now my chores.
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It's been a cold and gray spring so far but this week we will finally have temperatures in the 50s and a little sunshine. Last year at this time I was consumed by grief and working as a teacher. I don't really remember much. I retired last June I was simply exhausted I was too "busy". I have always hated the word "busy" because to me it means filling the time with mindless activities. When someone "asks how are you?" I used to always reply that my life was "full and interesting" rather than busy. Now that my husband has passed away and I have retired I wish my life was "full and interesting". I don't want to do things just to fill the time I want to do things that are meaningful to me. So I have been making plans! This month I am scheduled to work with 7th and 8th grade science students for 6 days monitoring water quality on Lake Huron. Next month I will be working with the InLand Seas program teaching water quality and sailing to students of all ages on lake Michigan. In June I will be a volunteer lighthouse keeper for a week on Lake Superior. And in July I'll spend a week on Drummond Island. I've got some big things planned, now if I could just figure out how to make the day-to-day things more meaningful without him here with me.
I have never in my life had more trouble describing myself than I have today! When you use a website builder such as this there are prompts that suggest what kind of information to put in certain areas. There is a block titled "Author". I have tried and tried to write just a few sentences about myself but I can't seem to figure out who or what I am. I am a widow...is that all I am? Some days that is how I feel. It's funny because I never defined myself as just "wife" when my husband was alive. But I am definitely different now, different because he is no longer here, "we" does not exist, the person that I was when he was here does not exist, there is just me. I live in a rural area a mile back into the woods in a beautiful little house surrounded by national forest that we bought just a year before my husband passed away. It is so incredibly beautiful and I feel blessed to be able to live here but it is not an easy place to live. I have my days when I am tempted to move back to the city but I'm not ready to give up. I have so many things I need to figure out! Hopefully someday soon I will be able to more easily tell you who I am.
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