It is a relief to see the greening taking place after this grim fall and winter. The red wings have been back for two weeks. The peepers began early last week. The morning territorial calls have begun, and now the earth is turning into the sun minute by minute. The heart cannot help but be lightened. Thursday morning before dawn the clouds were shredding the sky with lavenders and grays and deep Pennsylvania spring blues, the west wind driving everything before it. Every old bone felt new.
At Lamancha, Lakota*, a 60 pound American Staffordshire, was happy to see the volunteers and walked as if the whole world was becoming fresh moment by moment. Later, alone in a field, the leash dropped, he sprinted in large circles round and round me, the energy of his immense strength burning, burning, his back legs digging in and hurling him forward until he cut the radius and leaped into me, and once corrected lay prone until released, pure happiness in his panting and grin.
If you have not been doing so, it is the time to get out of the house, away from the screens, into the air. How many days do you think you have? The sun is burning the earth alive, and you do not want to miss it.
*Before coming here, he had been kept in a crate for 18 hours a day for months. He came to us so wild it took two of us to leash him. We did not know if he would make it. His undisciplined energy, strength and potential for aggression made his life an uncertain bet, but all the loving attention of the volunteers here, over months, and extra training by a gifted handler, has brought him back.
