SOL21 Slice 26: Marvelous March

 

I am participating in the

 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOL21).  

All participants are sharing stories about moments in their lives, writing 

 every day for the month of March 2021.

Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for nurturing teacher-writers!

Today is one marvelous March day

without a lot to show for it

except

to share some verbal snapshots with some alliterative fun . . .

Spring: seedlings stirring, stretching in soil - 

I did a little walk around my yard and I am just delighted with my finds. Both the columbine and bleeding heart plants are poking their wispy heads through the hard soil. The daffodils, forsythia, and lenten roses are blossoming and looking spectacular, and the wood hyacinths are just about to pop. I've found several surprise 'volunteers' - gifts from the birds, I always say - including a lamb's ear plant growing exactly where I might have planted it myself, in a nice section of the front yard garden. Oh, I love this season!

March means missing mittens in mud -

Tony and I went for a long walk along the creek. We hadn't walked very far when I noticed this nice, waterproof, warm mitten languishing in the mud along the path, encapsulating the fickleness of our weather here in the D.C. area. Several overnights this past week have been near freezing, yet today's weather is in the low 80s. Whoever lost that dear little mitten sometime earlier in the week is never going to remember to look for it now.

"Pulling the Putin" - pecs and performance -

We saw so many teenage boys getting exercise in shorts and bare chests. It's one of those "it happens every spring" moments, isn't it?  The first warm day of the season seems to demand it. I was only a few minutes into our walk when I wanted to lose some of my own layers - why in the world did I put on a long pair of jeans? 

Wild wind whipping, whisking wood branches -

As we walked, we would occasionally hear the roar of the wind followed immediately by a crack, crunch, bang, slap of branches falling. This certainly kept us very alert! No large pieces fell into our path, though we saw one long branch fall some distance away from us. Thankfully, the branch simply hit the ground, and did not land on anyone or anything. March has only a few more days to go "out like a lamb."

Red-breasted robins running, rarely reached -

When we got back to the house, I found about a dozen blurred images of the woods along the creek, all missing the robin that was my focus, the reason I was taking the photos. So funny. The robins seemed to be everywhere along our walk - bathing in puddles, scurrying through the brush, jumping on fallen trees. Well, they are a nice memory - they are definitely NOT on my phone. I did try! I'll enclose a photo of my husband's feet - ha! That's as close and as clear a photo of the robin that I got, hahahaha.

That's it for today! Our 26th day of this blogging challenge - woohoo! The finish line is just around the corner!

"First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. 

Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. 

Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. 

Inspiration won't. 

Habit is persistence in practice." 

- Octavia E. Butler