The Aroma of Spring...

Spring. Freshly plowed earth and cow dung. Shy green buds and sunshine. Short sleeves and concerned looks from Ukrainians...

I guess I always thought if you lived in a cold climate, you'd strip down to shorts and shortsleeves as soon as the sun showed its face and the temperature was the least bit tolerable. I know that my aunt, after a particularly vicious cold snap in Upstate New York, reportedly donned her shorts when it reached a cozy 14 degrees Farenheit.

But that's not the way it is in Ukraine. Here I am, shedding my jacket at the first possibility of sun on my deathly white arms, and I get these looks. I've been told that the wind is different here, blasting out of the wilds of some Artic Waste, I think...but it feels great to me.

The aromatic pungence of cow poo if wafting into my nostrils from the great outdoors, where someone is preparing that rich black Ukrainian earth for planting.

Yesterday, Bruce had a guy with a tractor out here disking up the back yard. I stood at the kitchen window in the full morning sun scrubbing the dishes, listening to the familiar drone of the tractor that, to me, signifies spring. It was so much like home that I kept looking up from the dishes, half expecting to see Dad on the tractor with one hand guiding the steering wheel and one arm around Ethan's waist. But I was disappointed. There was only an old guy with a wooly beard.

Bruce and Deb made their trip to Poland to have a few days together and get their visas renewed. The kids stayed here, with me. We stayed up here some and at the Gollans some, and managed to come through it fairly intact :) The two youngest missed mom, I think, but I got a lot of cuddles out of the deal.

One night the four older kids stayed at the Gollans and took Clark and Noah home after supper. The sun was almost down, and wind was tossing the trees. I pushed Noah up the hill in the stroller and he sat dociley, bundled in his coat, without making a peep. Clark, however, was scared of the trees and his face crumpled up to cry. He ran to my side and grabbed my hand, glancing fearfully around him at the waving branches overhead and the lights twinkling in the dusk.

"Wanna hold your hand, Cass, wanna hold your hand!"

"Ok, you can hold my hand. Help me push the stroller," I said. "Listen to the birds, Clarky," I told him. "They're singing themselves to sleep." He listened, alert, with big eyes.

"Yeah, I hear them. They're singing to sleep?"

"Mmhmm."

And then we tried singing the English equivalent of the lullabies the birds were singing, one about the sheep in the pasture and the moon being a shepherdess. But I couldn't remember all the words properly.

I've been homesick this week for no apparent reason, missing family and friends, old familiar sounds and smells and places and memories that I try not to dwell on too much. But it's ok.

"Why are you downcast, oh my soul? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God."

Well, I'll be off...time for Lady to walk me. We'll see how that new leash I found at the center works :)