The rains of March and early April are here. The seeds are getting started, and I am more than a bit frustrated with the new “peat moss-free” seeding mix I am trying. Nevertheless, the maple sap is boiling, and the almost spring is upon us.
Now I recall, at the edge of winter, that there will be days that I am itching to get garden beds in order, but there will be too much water on the garden to move without creating a mud patch.
The cat will demand to be carried into the carving shop and begin an inspection tour. She’ll move about the projects in a furtive and firtle fashion- looking busy but doing little. Finally, after knocking a few things over, she’ll get into the nip and lay in her shop bed and purr.
The details attended to; I’ll set my tools out and start carving while listening to the marine weather forecast rattling and hissing away on the tiny shop radio.
It beats the hell out of February!
“firtle” . . . I like it as an alternative to “officious.”
I almost re-wrote an old post about chipping paint. My dad, a merchant sailor, learned to avoid the bosun by chipping paint in the form of a map. You looked like you were busy, but weren’t doing much. That’s firtle. My dad preferred chipping out maps of Ireland. He said Galway Bay could be a thing of beauty.