The Solemnity of Abandoned Places

The change of seasons always seems sudden to me. A few days into March, it snows and ices. A few days later, I'm out in the yard in a tank top starting flower seeds in pots. A couple of days after that, it's raining like the first days of Noah, and I'm thinking I should've saved the seeds a little while longer. I figured I was out of danger of frost, but I forgot about flood.

To me, that drives home the point of how stupid it is to have "first day of Spring" marked on the calendar as though you can pin that down. I figure the daffodils know when spring is happening. I've seen their leaves poking up through the dirt, so it's happening. But the other thing the daffodils and I know is that spring doesn't come. It doesn't arrive. It happens and goes on happening and you can't really do anything but kind of sway in the breeze.

For us, that means getting outside and maybe even off the road when the getting is good. We had gotten it in our giddy heads to try trapping crayfish in the river this spring. Something about March brings out the hunter/gatherer in us. So when the weather was lovely, we put out a trap. Luckily the weather was still lovely the next day when we went to check it. Alas, our trap yielded no crayfish, nor even any mudbugs as the colloquialism goes. Two extremely confused minnows were hanging out waiting to be traumatized further before being set free.

We were undaunted. Crayfish aren't half as interesting as the things available to be seen on river banks. Belted Kingfishers with their messy hair-dos, chasing and chittering. A safe on its side in the middle of the river. Monster dog footprints. A whole Chevrolet Bel Air embedded in the river bank. (Didn't get a picture of that one.) I don't approve of litter, truly, yet at the same time the strange traces of human presence always create a solemn ambiance where they intrude.

After encountering the safe and the car, the kingfishers and the sunshine, I had to drive. A bizarre recipe, I know. Apparently, rusted metal makes me thirst for adventure. And apparently adventure for me is defined by abandoned buildings and creepy birds. That is exactly what we found on one of the great roads around here that is not wide enough for two goats to pass abreast, but somehow people drive down it with wagons full of extra-large round bails.

Abandoned houses always appear very solemn from the outside. There's something a little bit artistic about the vines climbing up them and the broken glass and the air of solitude. The chicken house with its nesting boxes still full of straw. The forlorn little pond. The trees marching right up to the siding. The giant black headed vultures alighting on the roof. Yikes! Maybe we should get out of here... I'm not sure whether they saw Abraham and imagined him with dipping sauce packets, or whether they were simply attracted by the stench inside the abandoned house. Because, unfortunately, the solemnity of abandoned places is often ruined by the smell...