Hello dear readers on this beautiful Wednesday.  The day is just beginning here at Steve’s Country, the sun is shining brilliantly and sparkling off the new golden green leaves of the aspens.  The leaves are still small, but they are growing now.  It really is a beautiful sight to see the new leaves popping out.  The raspberry plants out back also have new leaves showing.  The dandelions are out carpeting some areas with their brilliant sunny yellow.  The sun is once again shining on my desk making that pine wood glow.

It is so nice to see the sun shining like this, and it would be nice to have it shine all the time.  But what if it did shine all the time?  What would happen then?  Everything would dry out, soon there would be no life at all.  The natural world around us requires rainy days in order for everything to grow, to be healthy, and to mature properly.

It’s the same in our own lives.  We would like to have the sun shining in our lives all the time.  No problems, everything going perfectly day after day.  But just like in a garden, if all we had was sunshine, we would wither and become weak.  We would lose our drive to reach out for better things.  We would soon not even want to do anything.  We need those rainy days for nourishment.  Rainy days help us to grow healthy.  They help us to grow strong.  They give us the extra that we need to push toward our goals in life.  They help us to mature into the people we need to be.  We need the sun, but we also need the rain.  Those days when things happen, we would call them bad days, problems, difficulties or whatever.  We need those days too.  They will help us mature and give us strength to push forward with even more strength and determination.  Never stop.  Never give up.  Always look and move ahead.

I love spring.  It’s like a new beginning.  New growth.  New color.  New life in all the plants, trees, flowers.  It’s a beautiful time.  It’s an exciting time.  It always gives me new energy to get things done.  It even gives me energy for the more mundane things such as cleaning and dusting.  Don’t mention dusting.  I really don’t like dusting.  Unfortunately, because I have a lot of stuff, that means a lot of dusting.  Sigh.

The birds are spreading out to their nesting areas now.  So there is much less activity around here.  But some birds always stay around and nest close by.  There is a pair of song sparrows that seem to be staying this year.  They weren’t here last year.  I enjoy the beautiful song of these little birds.  A real country pleasure.  My landlord’s daffodils are growing.  They are sure late this year.  At this rate they will be blooming in June.  They should be blooming the end of April.  But even though late, they don’t give up, they keep on growing and blooming.

I was outside yesterday, it was just so nice and warm on the deck.  Then I felt something tugging on my jeans.  I look down and there’s Sylvester reaching us as high as he could trying to get my attention.  I didn’t have any peanuts so had to come back inside, but he waited patiently for me to return.  He knew what was coming so he didn’t mind a little waiting time.  He picked out 3 and off he went.  He made about 12 trips before the squirrel came and chased him away.  Then another squirrel showed up and the fight was on.  Wow, just watching those two, jumping, rolling together and chasing each other.  They kept it up for nearly 15 minutes before one finally got the upper paw and chased the other one away.  In the meantime, a third squirrel showed up and ate the remaining peanuts and left before the victorious squirrel came back…to nothing.  I think there is a lesson to be learned there somewhere.

That’s it for now everyone.  Until next time, I hope you have a great day and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

© 2019 Steve McLeod.