Spring.
The scent of growing things: green grass, the leaves on the trees returning, even the weeds quickly trying to take over my lawn. I smelled freshly-turned dirt, from the garden that we began planting the day before. The chill wasn't in the wind anymore - it was nice to be outside.
Oh, we were tempted to take off right then and there, but we knew that we still had more planting to do if we wanted to enjoy lots of fruits and vegetables over the summer, so we remained at home and dug in the dirt some more.
This week, we've been working, depriving ourselves of sleep because we can't seem to stop thinking about what we want to do now that the long winter is finally going away.
With spring comes good fishing weather, as it's time to spawn as the water temperature rises. We already know of one lake where we'd seen the fish getting into the really shallow water right next to the shoreline, practically beaching themselves among the reeds. Last year, when we discovered this, we tried to catch them with our bare hands, and when that failed, we wasted the whole day tossing baited hooks in that direction, but with no luck. This year, we simply have a net -- we're looking forward to seeing if we can actually catch the limit on anything, even if it's simply carp. We looked it up, by the way -- it's one of the most-consumed freshwater fish, some 100+ thousand tons eaten each year around the world. We figure we'll try it -- why not, if it's free?
Another plan for this weekend is to dig the tents out of storage, set them up in the backyard to air out, and sweep the inside and out thoroughly. There's also the travel bag, packed with many of the small items we don't want to forget when we're out camping (firestarters, cooking utensils, cards & dominoes, MAX DEET, sunscreen, spare bandannas, stuff like that). We had bought a couple ponchos for our big canoemping trip last year, and I think we still need to rinse the sand out of those... We have utility shelves in the garage, where we try to keep all the camping gear together, but it gradually migrates to wherever we set it down when we last unpacked the car, usually at about 2am while feeling like a zombie from the drive home. So that needs to be sorted back out.
We're gradually putting together a wishlist of travelling/camping/fishing gear we'd like to acquire or upgrade -- a nicer digital camera to take high-quality, poster-size-printable pictures of the places we've been and things we've seen, so that we can put them up around the house; a two-burner camp stove for the occasions that there's a burn ban where we end up; a canoe with a hookup for a small outboard motor, good for paddling in the shallows or fishing in the deep water; more lures and books as we continue educating ourselves in fishing, and so much more.
Spring is a time of new beginnings, when the world reawakens, and the spirit of adventure can take hold of you, telling you it's time to explore those dreams you've been having while hibernating through the winter.
And I, for one, can't wait to go.
Don't look back
A new day is breaking
It's been too long since I felt this way.
I don't mind where I get taken
The road is calling
Today is the day.
-- Boston, "Don't Look Back"
