First Day of... Spring?

With today being the official first day of spring I decided to go out and do some yard clean up, rake the garden and fold in some spent grains I poured in there after a recent batch of beer, and just do some general yard work. Yeah.. it would have been great, had the weather decided to cooperate at least a little. I managed to run a rake through my strawberry patch a few times before it started sleeting on me. I was disgusted but decided to power through it because after a Winter of being cooped up in the house nothing feels better then finally getting outside and fixing the yard up. Winter does things to a yard, terrible things, and I've had to just stare at the havoc from my windows, a slave to my home and this weather. I powered through. I managed to get the strawberry bed raked, the rhubarb bed cleaned up, the flower gardens raked free of my unsightly neighbors yard debris that seems to be attracted to my lawn like a magnetic north and south.. It felt pretty good, cold, wet, sore, but good.

The soil in the garden beds looked and felt fantastic, dark black richness that raked effortlessly. The tulips, hyacinth, and iris are all about 4" tall already and we just had snow on the ground yesterday! I even managed to rake up some earthworms under a few leaf piles. Spring is certainly trying to overpower Winter around here, and I for one can't wait until it does.