by
Jean Hughes
April 1, 1996
April is here -- Big Springtime! I feel like a tree with its sap running into every branch. Life is moving, surging and resting in quiet niches both inside and outside of me.

I find myself laughing for no reason but happiness, at all the seen and unseen splendor. There is no respite from the beautiful turmoil. The earth cannot contain it, it blooms and sings it out. It fills the empty spaces within me that winter held vacant. I cannotbe contained. It is unruly!

* * *
This morning, the children and I are off to see the dam that beavers have built on the little creek. I have never examined a beaver dam before. It is a most fantastic, haphazard but effective feat of engineering. Rather a persistence-will-out project.

A small pond has already formed behind the dam. Along the creek edges there is evidence of slideways where the beavers and their logs have been sliding into the water.

This dam fits into the natural landscape and enhances it. The spillways where the water tumbles look like the work of a wild artist. It is more beautiful here because the beavers came. I would feel I had lived well if the same could be said of me.

* * *
It is nearly sundown, and I have brought the children to see the ducks on the lake. Meadowlarks sing all around us. The children stay along the far end of the lake and I try to sneak up on the ducks along the shore. I get some good looks before they all fly out into the center of the water.

Ducks are riding on the water by the thousands. I wish I had a lifetime for watching each creature and plant upon the earth. It is fascinating to watch every kind of life in action.


Anyone who believes that there is nothing new under the sun has never lived in the adventurous world of cooking. Combinations of foods are endless, and it is fun to discover new taste delights.

Red Raisin Meatballs
Mix together: 2 lbs. lean ground beef, 2 beaten eggs, 1 small chopped
onion, 1 t. salt, 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal and 1/2 cup milk.
Form mixture into two-inch balls and brown in shortening.
Place meatballs in a 9 by 11 inch serving casserole.
Heat together: One - 1 lb. can of jellied cranberry sauce, 
12 oz. bottled chili sauce and 1 cup white raisins.
Pour hot sauce over meatballs and bake at 350o for 45 minutes. 
Serves 8 to 10

A mourning cloak butterfly wavers above me as I walk the road to Sugar Creek. Along the path, salt and peppers spring up beside the lavender bittercress blossoms. Soft spring air blows me gently down the hill.

I roam along the creek bank for an hour and then sit on the roots of a big old tree that overhangs the water. All life is quiet until a frog surprises me by jumping in a four-foot arc from stream to bank. I hear my first spring croak!

Far down the winding creek, two buzzards are circling. They follow the water's path toward me as though I were reeling them in with a string. They skim above me, smooth as a whisper, and then veer in a new direction and sail out of sight. I laugh, for I had almost forgotten my ability to call buzzards to me just with a loving thought.

I love the buzzards with an ancient love. To me, their flight is the most beautiful of all the birds. We often do not see beauty because we have an earthly idea of ugliness and we do not appreciate birds who are scavengers, although through them death becomes life again.

The love of springtime is ancient too. On strands of time this love runs through us all. We each bend back to the first heartbeat and forward into the millennium. Each plant, animal and man, unique and forever changing, keeps the past and the present, and the hope for life tomorrow, within itself.

I look out at the beauty of this April. In its newness, I see the home of life, this sweet old earth that makes the filicific spring.

Copyright 1996, Jean Hughes.

Jean's book of ramblings and recipes "A Country Mile of Winter" and her book of poetry "The Earth's My Home" are available for $4.95 each plus $1.30 for postage and handling. Ten of Jean's favorite recipes will be included free with each book ordered. Order from...

Country Mile Publications
616 E. Monroe St.
Delphi, Indiana 46923