December 23, 1928 - May 17, 2005
I've known for many weeks I would soon lose my better half, but trying to prepare for widowhood has been too complicated to contemplate. However, since I think this website may be my lifeline, I decided to have a column ready to post when Hank gave up his fight with cancer.
This is the time of year when folks are laid low by that insidious disease called spring fever, but I will be knocked down by something I'll call grief fever. I suspect it is similar to Spring Fever, only worse. Medical books devote only a few paragraphs to spring fever. Although its cause is not known, it is believed to be transmitted by balmy breezes, brilliant sunshine and the sight of a world deliciously green and lush. I'm sure grief fever will be a little more devastating.
The symptoms of spring fever include total lack of concentration, inspiration and motivation. The body is so debilitated it can barely function, and the mind drifts in a gentle void, refusing to dwell on anything serious. The thought of accomplishing even the simplest chore brings on huge sighs and sometimes waves of dizziness.
The worst thing about spring fever is that there is no known cure except time. Even a dozen asparagus roots crying out to be planted or a cluster of lettuce seedlings demanding to be transplanted can't stir the patient who is suffering from this energy-draining affliction. Something as urgent as a column deadline is equally impossible to accomplish, the reason this one is being written well before the anguish of grief fever sets in.
Animals, as well as humans, are attacked by the exhausting malaise of spring fever. Although our sheep rarely get it, probably because their energy level is so low in the first place, horses definitely do. I remember how Francis, our sway-backed old horse, would get a severe case every May. She'd suddenly be sprawled out on the ground in the pasture, looking the way I feel when I get spring fever - wiped out. Some might say she'd eaten too much green grass and just had a bellyache, but our steers were always equally greedy and still stayed on their feet.
Birds, unlike animals, get very different symptoms in the spring. Instead of becoming lethargic, they get positively feverish, unable to stop singing, staking out territory and building nests. The Baltimore orioles who return each year to our silver maple delight in taking the colored yarns I leave out for them to weave into their pendulous pouches.
I have just discovered a book by Gale Lawrence that describes how Mama Oriole makes her nest. First she takes some long fibers such as my colorful yarn and loops them around the twigs that will suipport the nest. Then she gets more fibers and attaches them randomly to these dangling lines, weaving them back and forth, shaping the inside of the nest to fit her body. The finished product takes her anywhere from four to eight days.
Ms. Lawrence and several friends have a wonderful website - www.NaturalistAlmanac.com - that is chuck full of great articles on everything from birds and bees to trees and toads.
Frogs vary in their spring activity. The spring peepers sing ecstatically, sounding as if their hearts will burst, while the grandfather frogs in our pond just sit in the sun, mesmerized by the warmth and only croaking if they think it might rain.
If you have caught a case of spring fever, you have my sympathies. It's as frustrating for a gardener to be indisposed at this season of year as it would be for Santa Claus to come down with strep throat on Christmas Eve. Gardeners have too much to do right now, especially if they plan to have a vegetable garden in the back yard.
I haven't rototilled our vegetable garden, even though seeds and seedlings need to be in the ground by Memorial Day. Hank has always done that job. Two years ago I bought him one of those light-weight Mantis tillers for Christmas, so maybe I can manage. It should be a sort of mindless chore, going up and down, back and forth, smelling the good earth, preparing the soil for another summer's tomatoes and beans, peppers and potatoes. It will probably be a lot easier than writing, which takes real concentration.
Don't give up on me if no Weeds and Wisdom columns appear on the website for a few weeks. I know grief fever is a debilitating disease, but I have so many good memories from the fifty years Hank and I have been together, I am sure to get back to writing soon.
