Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Spring Comes to Wildcat Creek

Usually an early riser, I was sitting on my front porch about 4 a.m today enjoying the warm Ozarks air, listening to the gurgle of Wildcat Creek just down the hill, getting ready for another busy day.

The fireflies should be returning soon, I thought. That's a big deal for Barbra and me: sitting on the front porch watching what we call our "firefly friends" do their thing in the front yard.

Just as I was thinking about our blinking friends, I thought I saw a light. Is that one of the neighbor's yard lights through the leaves, I wondered? No, there was the light again. Slowing moving through the trees. Indeed, it was the first firefuly of the year.

Spring is grand in the Ozarks: the dogwoods, the flowers, the greening trees, the smells, the stirrings of nature in all kinds of ways. It's been increasingly like that for the last few weeks.

And spring is really here now.

The fireflies have returned.

Welcome back, friends.