Springtime in Georgia

We were all set yesterday morning to drive from Opelika, AL to Sumter, SC and then I changed my mind!  With the threat of snow and/or wintry mix to the North, I decided to drive south and east toward Savannah, GA .  We found a nice little park with a fishing pond near Dublin, GA.  We’ll nestle here until Saturday morning and then make yet another decision depending on the weather.  Meanwhile, that little pond is calling me to dig out my fishing pole.  Last night, while walking around the pond I was visited by a Great Blue Heron.  I remember the first time I saw one of these magnificent birds.  I was probably about 6 or 7 years old—what an impressive sight it was for me then—and what an impressive sight it is still.

Yesterday we drove through Peach County, GA (a place we have never been before).  The peach trees are now in blossom and the other trees have that shimmer of green about them.  Spring has come to Georgia!  Now, if only Spring would burst forth in Rising Sun, MD, we might just head for home!  But, meanwhile, I’m going to attempt to live out Robert Frost’s “A Prayer in Spring:”

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard,

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,

The which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends He will,

But which it only needs that we fulfil.

The hyacinths in our backyard--Spring 2016