Spring may have slipped in while we were all looking at the snow that fell east of us (sorry, Connecticut). Our little spring is flowing great guns but we’re going to be digging it out a little to form a grotto. I visualise something like a Brigit well. I have new wellies and everything.

We have a new weeping willow. It’s wee yet but I’m sure it will grow well down in the swampy area. We’re trying to make paths around through the dry bits, down to the area where Bertie says we should have a Japanese tea house (but I think we should have the pirate ship that I saw at the shed place on route 9).

It’s funny: when we were kids the spring floods would make an impromptu stream flow from the huge maple out back all the way down to the giant willow tree in the field beside the house. Nothing would entertain us more than building dams and sailing little boats while it lasted. So were we unconsciously drawn to this place by that sense memory? Doubtless so.

April finds its way through the undergrowth from the skunk cabbage down in the wetlands and the daffodils and tulips up the hill. Time to be planting and clearing away what fell over the winter. New growth, renewed life and hope — we all need it.