In our part of the world, now that it's the middle of March, school-aged children everywhere have an entire week off from higher learning. Many have found that their parents have also taken time off, packed too many of their belongings and stuffed themselves and their children into some form of transportation in hopes of finding better weather.
With the exception that we can still see a foot of snow on any given day, the weather came to us and we found ourselves basking in the warmth of an otherwise perfect spring day.
It wasn't the weather that gave away the pending arrival of spring. Nor was it the smell of the soil as it thawed or even the longer days. That there was no school for my 6 year-old daughter Neva wasn't even a consideration and if any of the early spring flowers had poked their heads out of the earth, it was lost on me.
No, what signaled that the turn of seasons was near came as I sat watching my three children and their little friends running around the yard barefoot and in T-shirts, covered in layers of mud and dirt.
Happy sweeping!
Bob Gunther
Webmaster, ContestHound.com
