in the green

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! My tenuous connection to Irish culture has been based on my paternal grandmother’s claim that we have lineage to the island nation, but she was wont to mention any names, especially Pat’s. I don’t think he had any connection to my early attraction to herpetology. Besides, the story of him driving all the snakes into the sea is BS. Serpents are irksome to herd and Ireland has not had any to drive away for 11,700 years, give or take a month.

That will not, however, forestall me from drinking a celebratory beer or so today. The more pertinent green here is that it feels like spring has finally arrived. It’s 16 days late for meteorological spring and four days early for astronomical spring, but whatever. Snowdrops (the flower) are blooming all over the yard, which means the bees will be back soon. Jude and I talked of outdoor projects yesterday as we checked out the ponds while the dogs romped around us.

The most important green around the farm is the verdant reading on our micro-hydro system that assures us all is well.

Spending more time outside will also reduce our fretting about Trump’s reign of terror. His sphere of negativity is certainly felt up here, but mainly it just strengthens Canadian resolve to resist him in his perfectly pointless trade war. Although he remains just under 50 percent in approval, look for that to drop in early April when more tariffs kick in.