One day last week I woke up with a sense of anticipation. It was Holy Week and one might have thought I was anticipating Easter but my anticipation stretched farther into the future than the upcoming Sunday. I had just dipped into the final cup of blueberries picked last summer. Instead of feeling sad about the end of that tart, beautiful taste, I had this flash of memory…..sitting on a hot, July day listening to the plop, plop of berries into a bucket. One memory led to another…..crouching with my friend Lynn in the strawberry fields of Lake Elmo, juicy red staining our fingertips……carefully reaching my hand into the briers of raspberry bushes in our backyard chatting with our five year old neighbor who is my picking partner…….the brilliant colors and smells of the St. Paul Farmer’s Market-ripe vegetables, smiling faces,fragrant basil, amazing sunflowers…..ahhhhh!

These are the musings of someone tired of winter. Can you relate? I love snow, the solitude of winter, the ability to cocoon and do in-house projects….knitting, reading, making soup and time around the fireplace. But it is time to come out of hibernation….time to come out of the cave. It is time to get into the dirt, to dig and plant, to nurture seeds, to wait for the gifts of Earth to be visible once again. It is time for color…green grass,the yellow-green of new leaves emerging, red tulips, yellow daffodils, purple primrose. It is time to smell rain on concrete and grills sending the scent of supper throughout the neighborhood.

I am not alone in this anticipation…..the noisy cardinal outside my window this morning is also shouting out his longing…….spring, come now!

"To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted." Ecclesiastes 3