Spring Thaw

Dear folks,

Yesterday brought hard rain for several hours just after we saw the first robins and red-winged blackbirds. The geese have been back for four or five days now. I'm sure the first cranes are nearby and we just haven't seen or heard them yet. This morning we heard the first song sparrows on our walk to the marsh and river. The river is at least as high this time as it was at the highest stage of the last flood, a couple of weeks ago.

We've learned that I seriously underestimated the amount of wood we would need to heat this house. Moving from the little house on Wyman Road, some 1240 square feet, to this one of 3,000 square feet--well, yesterday we started burning some of the semi-green slabwood. I'll be busy this summer in my new overalls with the chainsaw.

I'm on spring break this coming week, for which I am grateful, and I'll get as much work done as I can, but I told my editor at Nebraska Friday that there's no way I can have this book done before the end of May. I think that's a realistic, achievable deadline. Matt is great and says very encouraging things. The important thing is that the book be definitive, which it will be. When it's done, I will have put about a year into its making, and that will always count as a solid, productive year.

Alison's preparing for her first 50-mile race, and she's been working with a running coach, who just helped her significantly be convincing her that she has to consume 200 or 300 calories each hour when she's going that distance. She also has to drink a quart of liquid every hour. She didn't believe him at first, but she followed his advice Friday on her 26-mile run, and she felt great the entire time and has no pain today. I'm a fat lard-ass but she keeps me inspired to believe that that will change.

Today is quite gray with thin ice covering the rain puddles. The high will be 39, and we're expecting sleet and snow, so I pulled out the turkey broth from the freezer (Were some of you here when we ate this turkey?) to make soup with barley and lentils and who knows what else. I'm working on a book review and Alison's doing a one-hour run, but later in the afternoon, we're going to a performance of "The Music Man" by the Gratiot County Players in Alma. And we wish you all could come with us and then enjoy the soup round our table.

Awaiting the return of cattails and sawgrass, and loving you all,

Dad/Danny

PS: Alison found a raccoon skull on our walk this morning.