March comes in like a lion...

...and continues to mercilessly whip your butt Kung Fu-style until you collapse from exhaustion.

Spring seems to have finally sprung in these parts, and there has been plenty going on around here, I just haven't taken the time to write a post about any of it. My itemized list of excuses, in a nutshell -

a) I've been on a self-indulgent napping spree that I am reluctant to give up. Ever.

b) New bunnies. New bunnies that like to escape. New bunnies that had to be wrangled from within a clump of prickly blackberry bushes with the help of my 6-year-old and hubby's salmon net. More than once.

c) Dandy mania. I have literally filled a gallon ziploc bag with dandelion petals. Just the petals, people. Do you have any idea how many hours it takes to pluck a few hundred dandelions? Well, neither do I, but it's a lot. All I can say is, this dandelion wine had better be as fan-flipping-tastic as everyone has told me it is, because it takes umpteen hours just to make a single gallon.

d) Birthdays, birthdays, birthdays. The months of March and April are what we refer to in our family as "birthday season". It starts on March 1st and keeps on with an average of 2 birthdays per week through mid-April. I feel like I'm spending half of my life shopping for gifts at Wind Up Here and/or sitting amongst a gaggle of screaming, sugar-loaded children at Chuck E. Cheese.

e) The Garden; she calls. So far we have peas, kale, chives and horseradish in the ground, soon to be joined by swiss chard, strawberries, potatoes and lettuce. The hubster put in two new raised beds just today, into which we will - eventually - be planting tomatoes and cucumbers, per the ol' garden plan. We have a lot of ambition about adding to the form and function of the garden and yard this coming spring and summer. Time will tell if we have enough time and energy to pull it all off.

So, basically, it's the same old-same old. Long spans of utter laziness interspersed with brief, frenzied activity, with little sprinklings of wine and chocolate throughout to make the whole mess tolerable.