I know it’s spring because that yellow stuff that you see in the background is the forsythia that usually blooms in early April, but is just now getting around to it. Today, in fact. Yesterday the whole back yard looked like a crop of sticks growing out of mud–but today there’s a cloudy mass of yellow that can only mean one thing: someday other things might be encouraged to bloom, too.

And–well, that diagonal line through the center of the picture of our woods is a giant old maple tree that decided to fall down in last week’s nor’easter, narrowly missing a shed that can’t be seen in the picture. Instead, it landed softly on top of another tree, which appears to be cradling it sympathetically, just like an old friend.

Also, what better sign of spring (or summer) than that it got to be 80 degrees here today, or so says the weatherbug? The populace naturally went mad, baring skin and trading last week’s boots for flipflops, cars for motorcycles. I even took my trusty old laptop out on the screened porch and wrote for hours, listening to the sounds of birds and insects, and of course the ringing of the axe as my husband worked on breaking up the tree trunk before it really does slide off the other tree and do some damage.

 In another month those woods get so filled in with leaves that they’re deep and shadowy and cool, but for now they look sort of exposed and naked.

Tomorrow I start a week-long visit with The Writer’s Life Author Talk Groups, which can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TWLAuthorTalks/. I am looking forward to this so much! Other writers and readers can ask me questions, and I get to think up answers. I’m awed and humbled by the knowledge that the previous authors on there have about publishing–but I’ll try to hold up my end. Be gentle with me, if you go over there and think up questions.

It’s spring, after all.