I can feel the approaching rain in the wrist I broke when I was 12 after tripping while trying to catch a football I’d thrown high into the air. This ability to portend weather in the ache of knitted bones is a new feature of my aging body. No doubt there are many more such features to come – I’m not far from 50, after all – but for now, this is the one I notice most, and am almost grateful for, because I know it could be worse.
The rain is welcome. The ground is still thirsty from last summer’s drought, which was followed by a winter of below normal snowfall, which was then followed by a 10-day stretch in early April that might have passed for late June, the seasons co-mingling as the sugarmakers gathered the last run of sap and the poplars budded out. I’d wake in the night and listen to the wood frogs, open my eyes for a minute to the moonlight shining through the window.
I’m ready for the change of season. I guess we all are. Who doesn’t want to hear the wood frogs, see the grass green, watch the buds emerge, boil the last sap, even feel the ache of rain in their bones? I’ll take it all, and then some: Ride the bike, swim the pond, pull the weeds, ditch the damn mask. Set the cows to pasture and stand for a minute in their midst, listening as they chew that new grass.
And then (because winter is never far away), finish stacking the damn firewood.
Ben Hewitt 
I laughed at the ending. The wood. It’s a cycle that goes on and on.
Wonderful imagery, Ben!
Always a pleasure to hear your voice, even after all these years. I loved this one, but then again, that’s the way it usually is. It’s magic, makes me feel like I’m there.
My Austrian scythe arrives today. Moved from suburban to rural, hoping I’ll get to experience more of what you write about.
Thanks again!
‘Tis a very good practice to be grateful for the aches of rain and all the other aches that come.
Remembering “not far from 50” from a couple decades beyond it, gratitude is indeed the best strategy….
I always enjoy your writing and am grateful for that.
Tomorrow, I intend to be on a cycle that goes on and on. Hopefully, I will laugh too.
Ben…The change of season is always welcome as the calendar advances bringing a different look and feel. Tomorrow delivers the month of May, a month James Taylor referred to in a song as the “holy month of May.” I will listen to that, I always do on May Day, something that long ago became some sort of ritualistic celebration by me. May is a “transition month” and indeed holy as majestic spring days move us toward June, the month that busts out all over. In the days when I heated with wood May was the month I procured green wood for the next heating season. The cycle never stopped but it was somehow enjoyable.
50 is getting further behind me and I wish I was on the front side of it. Not to be.
Thank you for this post!
Ah, Ben, the wheel of the year keeps turning.
I broke my wrist when I was 9 doing flips off the jungle gym at school. For years afterward, I could forecast the coming rain. Then, it suddenly went away. I have often wondered if that ability would return. We shall see.
I hear you on the mask. If I needed another excuse to stay home (which I don’t), that would be it. My oldest was saying today that he can’t wait to burn his when this is all over. I wonder when that will be.
Your writing always brightens my day. Thanks for that.
Burning wood for heat and cooking is a younger person’s thing. Burning long dead dinosaurs with the turn of a knob is probably a better source of heat for us older folks.
‘Hope you, your family, and your friends are all well in body, in mind, and filled with GOD’s Holy Spirit!