It has been so dreary that I figured I might as well post a black-and-white picture, though it's not far off nature's own color scheme. I snapped this on a misty Easter morning, when we were enveloped by a rare 70-degree spike in temps.
Chris, Chipper and I sprawled out on the (still) OSHA-unsafe deck for hours, drinking in the kind of sunshine and warmth that lends a person to think big, hopeful thoughts of life and the future.
My next-door-neighbor, Scott, finally out of hibernation, hollered up a greeting and waved around a bright pink plastic flamingo as if it were some sort of divine omen of the warmth to come. In short order, he was drilling holes into his deck railing and making it a permanent fixture of our woodsy/kitschy panorama.
The giddiness of that singular day -- which tricked us into packing up our turtle necks and winter boots prematurely -- is now lost like the eerie fog that hung over Loveless that morning.
Since then, our part of the world has been snowed on, iced on, rained on ... and cursed upon.
