Tag: April Fool’s Day

April Fool’s Day 2025

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner , , ,

No thirty inches of snow!  No ice storm!  No baseball sized hail stones!  April Fool’s Day didn’t punish us here in New England.  It’s a bloomin’ miracle.  It’s a pretty nice day so Camera Girl handed me her “Honey Do” list.  The one item I’m stalling on is walking the property with a garbage bag and a stick with a nail on it picking up all the trash that has blown into the wooded areas.  As Sergeant Snorkel told Beetle Bailey, “If it don’t walk, if it don’t talk, police it!”  But it’s annoying.  It makes me feel very uncharitably toward the whole human race when I see what kind of stuff they toss out the windows of their cars.

So, I was driving down the main east-west road in Dunwich in a section that is full of blind curves and rolling hills when up ahead about a quarter of a mile I see something in the road.  I see it’s moving but it’s too short to be an adult human so I slow down.  “Could it be a child or is someone sitting or kneeling on the road?  And then I can see.  It’s a huge tom turkey with his feathers and wings all puffed up.  He’s in the oncoming lane and he’s staring me down!  So, I creep past him looking for his harem.  But I couldn’t see them.  Either they were shielded by the trees or they were gone.  But Tom was sticking to his guns and wasn’t afraid of me.  So, I left him there and in my rearview I could see him still standing there like some blithering idiot trying to act as crossing guard to an invisible flock.

After cutting down the raspberry canes last week I’ve been hoping to see some leaves sprouting up from the dirt.  So far nothing.

But the hellebores are coming up.  More confidently in the sunnier areas and tentatively in the shade.

And likewise for the daffodils.  We have three different stages of development depending where they are on the property.

The hostas near the house have just broken ground.

And this little crocus is bravely showing its colors.

So winter is climatically over.  I will now stow the shoe spikes, snow shovels, ice scrapers, snow blower, snow boots and all the rest of the paraphernalia that litters the mud room and move forward into the growing season.  And now that the ground is completely thawed, I can begin things like fixing fences, gates, damaged wood and all the other weather-beaten components of my poor house and adjacencies.

And I will move the lawn mowers to the front of the shed and contemplate that fateful moment when I drive the mower over the grass for the first time this year.  Right now, it’s unimaginable.  Some of the grass is overly long and soaked with winter water in the soggier areas of the west field.  Some areas are worn away by snow, ice and rain.  Other areas are dead and brown.  Cementing the whole thing over sounds like a better solution.  But in just a very few days the darn thing will revive and life will return.

And in honor of this projected return of life I have put out ten preying mantis egg sacs.  I purchased them from an American company that said they are Chinese mantids.  Well, why not?  Apparently, they’re already outcompeting the Carolina mantis right here in New England.  Who am I to stand in the way of Darwinian selection?

The only thing left to cap off the beginning of spring is the reappearance of the pond turtles.  They have not made their reappearance but Camera Girl will keep me apprised of their status.

“O brave new world that has such people in it!”

01APR2023 – April Fool’s Day

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner , ,

Having now lived the majority of my life in New England, I’ve come to associate April Fool’s Day with twenty plus inches of heavy wet snow.  Not because that is the inevitable result on April First but because it is the ironic result that would best capture the spirit of this odd “holiday.”

Well this year’s edition is a less dramatic but more typical version with cold rain and cool refreshing air that I find suits my mood today.  I wandered out of the living room onto the lower balcony and breathed in that freshness and approved of the weather and the day and surveyed the soggy battered appearance of the “estate.”  The forest is full of dead leaves and sodden moss.  The fields are covered in brown grass and sodden moss.  Here and there a few daffodils have blossomed.  The pond is swollen with the rain and the mallards are nowhere in sight.  Maybe ducks are just as sensible as I am and don’t like to get wet.  Maybe they’re holed up in an old coyote den waiting out the rain.  Naturalists would deny such a thing but I like to think that the animals that inhabit my habitat share in my virtues and vices.  Why shouldn’t the ducks crave warmth and eschew getting wet?  Very possibly the drake is often scolded by the duchess for forgetting to take out the trash on time and neglecting to repair the flushometer in the spare upstairs bathroom in a timely manner.  To me all these things seem possible and in some way fitting.  Although I somewhat doubt that the ducks have a spare upstairs bathroom.  Probably just the one.

April First is a pivot point.  For me it is the essential beginning of spring.  Even the rare April First blizzard is a rearguard sally during winter’s final retreat into history.  From now on it will be yard work to repair the ravages of winter and take advantage of the short growing season to grow the vegetables and flowers that we hope to produce.  And it’s the signal for outdoor activities of all sorts; more walks in the forest and the search for photographic opportunities.  It’s a very hopeful time of the year and even impossible hopes seem less impossible after the First of April.

The week ended well.  Today should be a good day to work on the book.  Well, let’s see where that goes.  I look at the headlines and it’s Trump, Trump, Trump as far as the eye can see.  Well, I haven’t got anything interesting or useful to add to that circus.  The only thing worth noting is that the term banana republic is now completely ubiquitous and rightly so.  Later on, something may occur to me and I’ll put virtual pen to virtual paper but for now I think I’ll put on a raincoat and boots and be at play in the fields of the Lord.  But maybe I should take my cue from the ducks and cozy up next to the duchess where it’s warm.  “What?  I said I’ll fix that flushometer next week!  Sheesh.”

April Fool’s Day 2021 – Joe Biden’s Patron Saint’s Day

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Good morning my long-suffering readers.  What a momentous day.  Today at any time, any announcement by the press or the Dementia Administration will be indistinguishable from an April Fool’s Day joke.  If today they announced they were going to send a billion dollars, tax free to any and all left-handed Somali tuba players living in Fargo, North Dakota would you be absolutely certain it was a joke?  Actually, there is one exception.  If they say they are going to do anything sensible we’ll know that is a joke.

Recognizing that this is such a special occasion for the Left I think I will use today to only look at the bright side.  After all there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  I will search high and low for good news.  I don’t promise to find anything to say but at least I’ll make the effort.

Seriously, I think we’re all now well aware of the soup we’re in.  Beating the dead horse is not only subject to the law of diminishing returns but it also isn’t any fun for you to read or me to write.  I won’t ignore horrible things that need to be commented on and I will provide whatever commentary on the idiocy of our rulers when that seems to accomplish something useful, even if that useful thing is only humor.  After all laughter is a positive good.

But I’m going to have to start accentuating the positive.  And maybe that means I’ll have to make up stuff myself.  I like the picture of the day and the quote of the day because I have control over what I post.  I can find something that I think will impact people in a good way.  I don’t post the wit and wisdom of Joe Biden or Barack Obama.  I won’t showcase photos of transgender drag queen story hour.  There are plenty of good and beautiful things in this imperfect and confused world and nothing says I have to look for the ugly and the depraved.

Spring is upon us.  Stuff is starting to sprout and I’ve already seen hellebore flowers and daffodils and the forsythia is about bloom.  Yesterday my two-year-old granddaughter went out into the garden and found some “darling” worms.  The world is loaded up with miracles and wonder.  Concentrating on George Floyd and Joe Biden is a sucker’s game.  I just read a report that said that cities like New York and Chicago are doomed because they’re now too expensive.  Good!  I left New York City about thirty-five years ago and it was the best decision of my life.  And now I see why.  Human beings are like any other life form we follow the gradients that increase pleasure and decrease pain.  We naturally go toward the good and flee the evil.  A place that either purposefully or mistakenly inflicts pain on its inhabitants doesn’t encourage those people to stay.  The riots of last summer on top of the COVID captivity were like some kind of laboratory experiment to see how quickly the largest city in North America could destroy itself.  It worked perfectly.

So, let’s look for the good in this.  Make it a point to live where the people aren’t crazy.  When you look for a school for your kids ask them to show you the books and the lesson plans, they use for social studies.  Ask them if they have content on transgenderism and ask them if they mention white privilege.  Be smart and be careful.  You may have to pay more money to find a good school or you may have to home school your children.  Well, kids are an expensive investment.  You should protect your investment.  But look at the upside too.  If your kids are going to a school that has your values then it’s more likely that you’ll enjoy being around the teachers and the other parents.  Maybe not all of them.  But the odds will be with you instead of against you.

Well. that’s enough.  No April Fool’s Day surprises from me today.  Just a surprising new outlook.  Even a fool can find something to smile about in April.