Spring.  It’s a busy time of year here in Maine.  I’ve written about it before, the way the grass grows three inches a day, birds show up en masse, and a woodchuck lurks around the backyard.  These are some of the signs and seasons of life in this place.

There are other signs.

Celebrating twenty years of retirement, my father Herman kicked off lawn chair season two weeks ago.  Opening day varies from year to year, but there was a certain feeling in the air on May 2.  Thinking it was “the day,” I pedaled over to my parents’ house and as I suspected, my father was reclining in his vintage lawn chair.

I’ve written about the lawn chairs before.

We are in an unsettled weather pattern this week and it’s putting a damper on the lawn chair lineup, but everything else in the natural world moves forward uninterrupted.