...falling in love.

Ice formed on most of the lake overnight. I can still see some open water in the middle of the lake. But I probably won't see a totally open lake again until next April. Maybe in two weeks I'll be able to venture out on the ice. I do kind of like the change of seasons. All of the trees are bare of leaves. If we don't get a layer of snow in the next few days, I may go out and rake some leaves. But generally, I do most of the raking in the springtime. The leaves are compacted then. And still damp from the melted snow. And that allows me to pick them up by hand. In big clumps. I have more trees than any of my neighbors. Some neighbors like to have smooth lawns rather than lots of trees. And they even get their lawns chemically treated so there are no dandelions and other "undesirables." I like dandelions and a low ground cover called creeping charlie. Which sometimes creeps over to the neighbors' yards. I have a wide variety of trees. Pines. Spruce. Cedar. Oak. Maple. Ash. Sunburst locust. Catalpa. Tamarck. Willow. Mugho. Aspen. I have so much shade in the summertime that the grass hardly grows. And I also have built rock gardens. Years ago, I had an old Ford LTD car that had seen its better days. And before I junked it, I used it to haul rocks from farmers' fields. For my rock gardens and to fortify the shoreline of the lake. I put rocks in the trunk. In the back seat. In the passenger seat. And I must have made 100 trips into farm fields for the rocks. Some huge rocks. I can hardly believe I was able to pick them up. But that helped me build some muscles, I guess. And a strong back, too. You can see that sometimes I get carried away. Collecting rocks. And not least of all, falling in love. With life. And who knows, who else? -Jim Broede