125 degrees higher than our record low this winter.  Yesterdays sunshine heated my soul straight through.  T-shirts and muddy toes and popsicle’s and wading in the stream, devouring maple muffins and hens giving us a baker’s dozen each day.  This is real spring.  Oh, I do welcome mud season with a big beaming smile this year.

The biggest man in the house is on a trip far, far away, enjoying the sunshine himself no doubt, but I can guarantee it is just not the same type of rays touching his cheeks.  The summer rays that hit Vermont have a whole different way of returning your hope and promise, and forcing great involuntary sighs of gratitude out of your chest.  These photographs are for him.  I know he misses these smily big cheeked boys.  And we miss him too.  To heal the daddy’s gone blues we are headed for a visit to the coast for a few days.

(these ones are zooming straight to Uruguay … hola papa!  Their soft cheeks can only be imagined…)

I have high hopes that when we return, the sun will have done us a favor and eradicated this white stuff sloshing around our ankles completely.  Maybe its too much, but I’m even wishing for a crocus blossom or two…