Spring Slush

My head cold morphed into Bill's flu. I seem to have escaped the vicious throws, barely dodging a more serious spat with the funk, but Bill has been in bed for twenty fours now rotating between sweaty fever and teeth chattering body chills. There's no school today due to the hurricane force winds out there so Ella is home playing nursemaid to her dad in between her movies and dress up play while I work. She's all full of empathy and pity and sympathetic eyebrows. Me..... I'm trying to do the same. I'm trying to be a good little caretaker, cold washclothes at the ready and drawing a bath with Epsom salts..... but it's only because, in the event that I follow in his footsteps later this week, I'd like to have the same doting attention. Really, though, I secretly think he's a big baby. He usually is when he gets sick.
But this morning I woke up at six a.m. to do chores and it was wicked outside. Winds, slush and freezing rain. All the cows were curled up like puppies, cozy in eachother's warmth. I shoveled out the mounds of shit and realized we were short on hay so I found myself driving to the Farm and Garden before seven am for three bales, coming back and feeding out several more flakes to all of them and then finally kicking off my shitty boots in the mudroom at eight oclock.
We're right at that time of year when the firewood and the haybales are either gone or almost gone. Most parts of the country are enjoying spring bulbs and new grasses, blossoms and birdsong. But here we are in the midst of one more fucking noreaster and with two logs left to burn. Here's to hoping that by Friday the sun will be out and the temps will be in the high fifties and all the creeks will be swollen to their banks with melted snow. Here's to hoping I don't get the flu, too.