Sprung

Each year at about this time I am rather surprised to find myself completely amazed that it is finally spring. I mean, really. I own calendars. More than 2. Each of them proclaims the day of the equinox. For the 41 years that I've been on this planet, winter has been followed by, yes, spring.

So why does each year find me like a woman in a foreign film, standing at a train station, clutching in her hand a letter from her beloved, sent a year ago, stating that he will return on the train that is pulling into the station. She doesn't really believe that he will be returning, but still she clings to her foolish hope that he will keep his promise. She has counted the months, then the weeks and then the days.

And, behold, off the train he steps. A bit thin and wearing a ragged suit, but alive and whole and smiling before her eyes.

A week ago, Saturday, spring stepped onto the platform:



These weren't there the day before, but they are proof.

That and the expected temperature of 80 degrees F today.

Which brings us to the melting snow. The snow that was holding up poor Beaker's battered carcass. As expected, he went with gravity.

First falling backward:



(I fancy I can hear a soft, gasping moan from his open mouth.)

And then rolling onto his right side:



Truly pathetic.

I ventured across to the scene of the murder, snapping crime photos. (I should have gotten some of that yellow crime scene ribbon.)



Here we have where his little legs were snapped off under him.



Bits of Beaker all around the ground.



And here, you can see the cause of death: His severed spine. It was not high enough to cause instant death. He must have lay there, conscious, unable to feel his legs (numb) or feet (missing), yet still performing his postal service duty.

As this clearly meant much to him, Charles has erected something of a Beaker shrine, his corpse propped up by those rocks at his base, yet again. I'm lobbying to make it a grander structure by toting in wheelbarrows full of more of those rocks from our fire pit and mounding them all around him, with his face sticking out, still able to collect the bills and sales solicitations that seem so vital to our lives.

Beaker is dead; long live Beaker.

Or something like that.

Anyway, this is to document that it is, indeed, spring here and the tundra is thawing, for which we are all, including the ghost of Beaker, grateful.



(Molly chewing on some remaining trunk of Christmas tree.)