Hello March

The photo above is of a yard on our street in Ridgecrest. We love to walk past this tortoise any day, but especially now, in early March, when he has daffodils and hyacinths in his circle, not just cactus.

When I lived in Michigan I really didn't like the month of March -- drab, gray, cold, muddy, ugly -- and when I lived in Colorado I was too busy digging out from all the enormous snowstorms that occur during March to have an opinion about it. But in California, March is a pretty month. Can be cool, can be rainy, but it's usually beautifully green (even in Ridgecrest) and flowers start to bloom. The desert wildflowers are more toward April, but they're starting. I saw a desert dandelion in our front yard (the side with just dirt) this morning.

So here we are in March, here we are in Year 3 in Ridgecrest. Coming up in a couple of days is my daddy's birthday (he's been gone nearly 22 years now), and then a few days after that, the twins will turn three. We have been talking about birthdays a lot and they seem to be getting the idea. Tonight as I was saying goodnight to them, Baby B said to me, "I got a idea, Mommy." I leaned down and asked him what his idea was, and he said "Birthday!" I agreed that yes, his birthday was coming, next week in fact. I need to go to the little toy store in town and buy some more Thomas trains or something. We'll just give them a couple of gifts on their actual birthday and I think I'll let them open the presents from the San Luis Obispo cousins then too.

Then on the weekend we're going to Los Angeles to celebrate with the rest of the family. Should be quite the social event of the season.

We (i.e., they) are getting so big. Here we are in the field behind our subdivision, in an area we call the "White Rocks" because someone dumped some extra white rocks there once. So many of the white rocks have been removed since then (some by us -- we used them to fill in a hole on our patio) that it hardly still deserves the name. We like to go there and run around on all the little hills. This is the only time all year that it's so green.

The (real) tortoises aren't up yet. Still hibernating, deep down in their burrow (we're almost positive they're both in the same one). I'm quite interested in when they will make an appearance. Both of them are spoken for -- there's a long list of people in Ridgecrest who want to adopt tortoises. We'll miss them when they're gone. Maybe I won't tell the club IMMEDIATELY when they do come up -- maybe we'll enjoy them ourselves for a week or two before bidding them farewell.

I can tell they're not up yet because their pen is full of green stuff (if they were up, they'd be chowing it all down). Come up tortoises, I want to tell them. Come up and eat. Spring is (nearly) here!