Bird Song & Fish Soup

My heart, my heart. The joy I feel when the winter weather begins to lift and the scent of spring is on the breeze is indescribable. I feel like a new person. I smile at the people in the aisles of the grocery store; I plan to fluff the house for a lighter look; I pull cookbooks from the shelves looking for new recipes to fit my new state of mind.

This morning I was awake early. At 7:00 am, it was already 55 degrees, so I opened the door to the deck to let the "winter stink" blow out of the house. (Lolo often used the phrase with us as children when we'd get antsy - "go outside and run the stink off.") The first thing I heard when I opened the door to the deck was birdsong - glorious birdsong. Not just the "thief, thief!" cry of the bluejay, but that most certain song of spring - the cardinal singing out his bounds around the yard. Shortly after, the song changed to the clamour of multiple goose honks. Sure enough, we had 7 on our pond (a missing mate??) and Neighbor Joe had two on his pond - 2/3 of which is still iced over!

Seven on our pond...



...and two for Neighbor Joe

Later in the day, I heard my Oldtimer calling from the yard. He sounded so frantic, I thought he'd stuck his foot in a gopher hole. No...the fish apparently took advantage of the winter to cozy up and make more. Our first little bit of warm weather and they were there to color the surface.

Just a small portion of the fish in the pond!

Before summer gets here, you will no doubt be sick of my attempts to catch photos of the fish, but...it just makes me so happy you're going to have to put up with me. Remember, we put a total of 90 little feeder goldfish (you know the type - all you see is two eyes and a tail) in the pond two years ago, and at least 15 by count did not survive...all the rest of these are homegrown!