Is Spring Here?

Since I live in Florida, it's hard to tell when spring has sprung. It all looks the same around here and other than the temperature beginning to rise a fair bit higher, it's pretty much all the same to me. Oh, there is one sure sign: spring break-ers. Students and families enjoying school vacation, all smelling of coconut oil, and carrying pool noodles. Seeing toddlers and teenagers around here is as obvious a sign of spring as seeing robins and grass up North. "Well Burt, it must be spring, I just spotted a polka-dotted whippersnapper."

I spoke to my Dad up in New York the other day. He's gearing up for spring too. He's also getting ready for the annual Battle with the Birds again. As you may know, every year there's a gang of Robins marauding about Dad's yard gunning for his cherry tree. Dad has yet to eat a ripe cherry off that tree. (see my blog June 27, 2006 for a refresher course.) I asked him if he'd seen the robins yet this year. "Oh yeah. It's only 41 degrees out, but they're out there walking around the yard in little overcoats." They're just biding their time. Of course Dad has his battle plan ready. He intends to tent the whole tree this year. Don't ask me for the exact details, but it involves two long poles, with a length of netting attached between them. I think he plans to kind of tee-pee the tree. Sounds reasonable to me. Rest assured he'll have it figured out logically and scientifically. It may take awhile to prepare the pole/netting thingy, but he'll get 'er done. He's tenacious that way. One year some idiot kids drove down our section of road bashing all the mailboxes, including ours. Bashed but good. Most of the rest of the world would have grumbled and said some bad words and gone into town and bought a new one for about six bucks. Not Dad. It was in the worst heat of July, and I caught him out in the garage, down on the cement floor pounding that stupid mailbox back into shape with a mallet. Do not think this was an easy task. He was at it for most of the afternoon. Sweating and swearing. (I think he may have only been 85 at the time. Still young.) I went out there and said what the heck are you doing? Why are you killing yourself trying to bang out this old mailbox when you could just go out and get a new one? And he looked at me through the sweat and tears and said "What fun would that be? Besides, what else have I got to do?" I turned around and left him alone. I really had no argument. He once told me, "It's not that I'm cheap. Well I am cheap, but it's just that I get so much satisfaction out of fixing something that's broken. I like it."

So I guess he'll have his hands full this spring with the cherry tree tee-pee. Oh, and he also has one more problem. He also has strawberries this year. He's afraid those "damn robins" are gonna get to those too. It's happened before. He told me how one year the dirty sons 'o guns were pecking away at his strawberries soon as they came out, so he rigged up stakes at either end of the patch, and ran string the whole length, then spent a lot of time cutting up strips of aluminum foil and tying them to the string all along the way. That aluminum flapped in the breeze and reflected and shined and there were those robins right in the middle of it having a feast just the same. Dad says, "They liked it! They thought it was a carnival!" So I don't know what he'll do about the strawberries, but I can't wait to find out. Life is always interesting at Dad's.