{"id":29567,"date":"2017-02-19T07:48:53","date_gmt":"2017-02-19T15:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/?p=29567"},"modified":"2017-02-19T07:48:53","modified_gmt":"2017-02-19T15:48:53","slug":"ah-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/19\/ah-spring\/","title":{"rendered":"Ah, spring!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Normally around this time of year, I’d expect the first signs — well, foreshadowings — of spring. But given the frigidity of the present winter all happy signs and portents have been delayed.<\/p>\n

Until a day or two ago I had to settle for this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A squashed frog on the road a few blocks from my house. Not this particular deceased amphibian<\/em> (whose photo I found online). But one of its relatives that I’ve had to step over on my walks to town. Damn strange first sign of spring. Frogs are usually late-season arrivals and not very plentiful; what a member of the species was doing wandering to its death on my hillside I don’t know. An untimely death in more senses than one.<\/p>\n

I finally got a glimpse of one familiar harbinger: daffodil shoots poking out of the dirt. But those were in a planter in a park, probably encouraged by master gardeners with clever soil emendations. Haven’t seen a hint of the natural daffodil profusion of late February.<\/p>\n

But. Spring will<\/em> come! And I saw the first real evidence yesterday. The Wandering Monk<\/a>, handyman and general helper par excellence, showed up yesterday, first visiting my neighbor J. (also a client), then spending half an hour with me. He inspected last fall’s retaining-wall project (which has held up beautifully over a challenging winter) and talked about the final Big, Scary Project to come: leveling and repairing the foundation on the back wing of the house.<\/p>\n

Now that the doctor cr*p is out of the way (knock wood), it’s time to raise the house. Or it will be time come April or May. It’s definitely time for me to begin moving stored stuff from the disused bedroom into the attic so the Monk and helpers can tear up the floor and work from within the house. (Ground clearance under that part of the house ranges from squeaky to nil. So the saner, kinder approach is to pull up portions of the floor and work from inside rather than asking poor souls to shimmy under.)<\/p>\n

By this time next year I may be sleeping in a real bedroom rather than a nook off the living room (which is intended to be my future office and art room). A bedroom with a level floor<\/em> — thanks to the Wandering Monk and you.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Oh, and in searching for images of squashed frogs, I learned that there’s a drink by that name. Who knew? It’s much more attractive than its namesake:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Normally around this time of year, I’d expect the first signs — well, foreshadowings — of spring. But given the frigidity of the present winter all happy signs and portents have been delayed. Until a day or two ago I had to settle for this: A squashed frog on the road a few blocks from my house. Not this particular deceased amphibian (whose photo I found online). But one of its relatives that I’ve had to step over on my walks to town. Damn strange first sign of spring. Frogs are usually late-season arrivals and not very plentiful; what a…<\/p>\n

Continue readingAh, spring!<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-improvement","category-rural-and-small-town-living","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29567"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29574,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29567\/revisions\/29574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}