I can always tell when spring officially rolls in because I start having
migraines. I've had a couple in the past few days, fortunately not too severe.
Inevitably, in spring and fall, the changes in weather seem to play hell with
my system, and that is when the migraines are pretty much guaranteed. At least
they're not as bad as they were some years ago, when they regularly knocked me
down and out for at least a full day.
There are woods all around our house, so in the fall, the leaves that gather
in the yard are prodigious. We tend to clean them up about every other year,
and we skipped this past fall. They do gather pretty deep in the lower yard
out back, though, so I figured that, as part of my regular spring cleaning,
I'd take care of them today. Not surprisingly, this turned out to be a
masochistic, awful thing to do. It took me about three and a half hours to
blow out the garage, the driveway, and the lower yard, which was covered by as
much as two feet of leaves in places. Now, I feel like my back is permanently
stooped. I'm getting too old for this shit.
There used to be grass back there, but as the trees have grown and cast more
shade over the backyard — not to mention the frequent gullywashers that flood
the low-lying areas in the summertime—grass does not grow happily back there.
Right now, there's some lovely dirt though.
Remember, tomorrow is the grand opening of Eden's Ember Bookshop in Eden, NC, at 729 South Van Buren Road, Eden, NC, and I'll be there signing books from 12:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Stop by if you can!
