I spent most of yesterday outside: raking, pruning, hauling leaves and detritus, for hours and hours. The yard may be small; but thanks to those enormous maples, it has piles of leaves. In late fall I rake them onto beds as mulch and insulation, and in early spring I rake them off, now semi-decayed by the snow, and cart them to my compost pile, where they'll continue to decompose into the rough layer I'll use as base material when I'm laying out new garden beds in late summer. The process is labor-intensive, but it's been an effective way to rapidly create quantities of usable compost. Plus, I don't have much else to do outside in November and March. Still, raking is a surprisingly demanding exercise; and I am achy this morning, even though I've been doing core workouts all winter long. Gardening is a demanding sport: so much stooping, lifting, crouching, lugging, digging. My leaf project is good pre-season practice.

Today we're supposed to have rain from morning till night, though it hasn't started yet. So I'm pleased that I got all of the garden beds opened up: now the water can penetrate down into the soil, thaw out the last of the ice, encourage the bulbs to sprout. Tomorrow, in the sunshine, I'll prune roses and set pea fence, pick up my sharpened reel mower at the hardware store. Today I'll retreat back into the coziness of the house: read contest manuscripts, check the bound proof of Accidental Hymn for typos, do a spot of housecleaning, watch some basketball, make beef-barley soup.

I love spring because my eye is so eager for the small things: scanning for crocus shoots, the first red peony spikes. Cardinals sing; a single hopeful bee buzzes around my head. Hanging laundry is a treat and a joy, after a winter of basement lines. The cat pals around, ostentatiously loafing wherever I work. In the street, the children shriek on their scooters. Dogs bark through fences at the frenemies they haven't seen since last fall. A few drivers swoop by in convertibles, displaying their stereos and bald spots. The sounds of city spring pulse into the soft air.