Thinking about spring (I may be pushing it)

Well, believe it or not, we regularly experience all 4 seasons in one day. I'm guessing that's the prelude to spring. Thunder, lightning, hail, rain, sun and clear sky, and back to some gigantic wind storms. Must be getting ready to move into another season. This morning we walked to school in humid conditions, and the sky was breaking into blue above us. An orange and green lorikeet greeted us along the way. Two of these birds visited us at home last week, inquisitively looking at us, almost as if they were trying to talk to us.

When I left the house at 10 a.m. to head to the library, I drove through a thick fog, especially at the top of One Tree Hill Road. I took Nicole's shoes to school so she didn't have to run around in socks. To diminish the amount of mud, they are asking kids to leave their outdoor shoes at the door. Some kids don't mind running around in socks, but others want their footwear. Glad to oblige! The grade 5 and 6 students were in the multi purpose room (reduced by about 1/3 in size because of the new construction), rehearsing for the production. Apparently there are surprises in store, but I'll have to wait until it hits the stage. I'm still sewing some costumes -- they discovered I am a whiz on the sewing machine, so I've been taken up on my offer to sew. Today's bag of sewing is a set of headbands for the mermen... nothing like equal opportunity in this production. I'm also working on a few quilt ideas, but they're waiting a bit as I finish the last few costumes that were handed to me. My other sewing exercise was to make some "happy bags" (or happy sacks, according to Gabe) for the kids. In Winnipeg, I made some cotton flannel "bags", filled with wheat grains. These can be heated up in the microwave and applied to any sore muscles, tired little bodies, or just to warm things up! Here I made some out of the fleece I've been using for the quilts, and they're now filled with bird seed. We are hoping to attract more of the colourful birds to the yard, so I bought some bird seed to scatter around. It makes a good filling for the happy bags as well. Smells a bit like some multi grain bread when you heat it up in the microwave.

One of the other things the kids did in the first 5 weeks of this term was take dancing lessons - called "First Steps", I believe. The woman teaching the course is a fabulous dancer, and introduced the Ferny Creek kids to at least 4 or 5 different styles of dancing. And they danced with partners as well, so I think we will be seeing some great dancing skills in the future! I'm wondering if the proposed 2010 Wiebe reunion at Vic Beach should include a disco??? I think it would be a great idea...

Things are really blooming, but most leaves on the non-native trees are not yet breaking out... I'm taking the camera out tomorrow or Friday to catch some of the new blooms. Tom's sister sent me a gorgeous slide show of images of Aussie flowers, which I'm going to try to add to the blog. Don't know if it will take a Powerpoint preso. Will have to figure it out.