What to Do!

The weather these days is a big tease!  40 degrees one day and 70 the next; talk of snow, rain, wind mixed in.  It plays havoc with my sinuses but it also primes the pump for Spring thinking … and the formulation of the yard “to do” list.  I was up at 4:30 this morning with my first sip of coffee and beginning to think about that list.  I started with things as simple as bringing the yard furniture and ornaments out of the shed and ranging to getting some landscaping cloth and mulch, staining the wooden fence along the front steps, raking the hill, cutting up the fallen lilac bush, cleaning the strawberry and flower beds and shredding the debris, checking the rose-bushes that didn’t get covered in the Fall, planting the corn and firing up the grill and perhaps a score of other chores.  Somehow each year the list ends up being longer than I can reasonably expect to accomplish.  That dilemma is more discomfiting for my sweetheart than it is for me.  I have tried to be reconciled with the fact that I have the choice of being discouraged and frustrated or, accepting the fact that there will always be things that need doing and being happy with the fact that I’ve been able to do anything at all.

I have a dear friend who once told me that he doesn’t ever want to get to the point where he has nothing to do … no unfinished projects on his farm.  He wants to die with things to finish.  I don’t know if I fully appreciated that when he said it.  I do think I understand it a bit more now.   I think it would actually be disturbing if I were to take my first sip of coffee and realize that I had absolutely nothing to put on my list of things to do for the day, for the week.

Well … my first cup of coffee is gone (only fourteen more to go today), and it’s time to start working on my “to-do” list for today!