Last night as I drove home thru the back roads, after stopping at a local
Wally to get supper fixin's, I remembered there was one spot that, once I
crossed the 4 way stop sign, a house on the corner lot which is surrounded
by woods and has a hill that rises above it on the south side has a spring
boggy, marshy spot. The road curves deeply on the right of it and then
snakes back to the left in another deep curve, and rises above the property.
Down the drop from the road, the land holds water. Enough that a perennial
family of mallards and other ducks return every year to mate and raise a
brood. They are protected, have enough food, and feel safe enough to come
back every year.

I've noticed this every year since I discovered it 11 years ago when I tried
out a back road from my house.

Lately I've begun noticing something else too, and this was the reason as I
approached the stop sign, to get my cell phone and hope the signal was
strong enough to make one call. A week ago, when going TO Wally from the
back road, and drove the winding road to the spot, I was overwhelmed by the
sounds that rose to greet me in my vehicle thru the rolled up windows.

Last night, the sounds were even more raucous and loud. So loud it was
almost deafening. The waters lately have harbored hundreds perhaps almost a
thousand or so frogs and peepers. Their chorus of high pitched trills is so
loud and echoing in this little nook nestled against the bottom of a hill,
and surrounded by woods that I wonder how on earth the people who live in
the house stand it and also hope like hell that they never get disgusted
enough to do something about it to make it "less noisy".

The sound cut right thru the glass of the car, and thru the glass it was
loud. I pulled over to the narrow shoulder on the first deep curve that also
has woods and scrubby brush bordering it with a sharp ditch drop just inches
away from the old asphalt road and was seeking the phone number of my best
friend out in Oregon. I wanted Diane to hear the cacophony of sound from the
cell phone if she was home.

I pushed the number next to her name and connected it and hit the speaker
button on the side and then rolled down the glass. Instantly the sound
surrounded, over came, smothered and blasted me out. It was awesome!!!
They were all in full throat and singing to the heavens and every female
within a possible radius of a mile it seemed. I listened to the ringing of
the phone and when her husband's voice came on on the answering machine, I
waited for the beep and then gave this message, "I just called from East
Tennessee to share some true spring songs, I hope you can hear this and
enjoy it. It's really this loud" and immediately stuck my arm outside the
window to pick up the sound better.

I did this and slowly eased up the edge of the deep curve and it got even
louder. I then closed the phone and drove off to what I knew was waiting for
me at the house.

Earlier I had called oldest son at home on his day off to tell him there was
a package coming from Carroll Gardens up in Maryland. (YES, he has a job,
and it's at another Lowes in plumbing, woo hoo!!G) He informed me that a
package had already arrived. And it was large enough to hold a small child.
I told him it must be Diane, and he sounded shocked and amused when I told
him they had folded up a small person named Diane and sent it to
me....GBSEG

So when I got home, he comes downstairs to get the bags of supper making's,
a stuffed sauce cheesy pizza and extra stuff to pile up on top, and informed
me that "Diane" was waiting by the nook door against the chimney. In the
light next to the screen door that comes on when you drive up, I saw
immediately a four and a half foot tree gently tied to a five foot bamboo
pole painted green, in a large three gallon plastic bag and glowing. There
were magenta pink/red blossoms all along the stems that were tied against
the trunk. And the trunk........wow! It was almost three inches thick at
the base.

I was excited, so I called my friend, Diane out in Oregon and told her that
I had gotten a witch hazel named Diane that had red flowers. I also told
her to listen to her answering machine to see if there was an odd message
for her from me, and we parted since she was doing her earth mother things
with her four children and her hectic life out there in the land of growing
things. She gardens too, only on a scale that sometimes puts me to shame
since she also grows a veggie garden to suppliment her produce as she's a
vegetarian and been one for as long as I've known her.

This morning as I woke early to the sounds of shouting birds in every song
imaginable that cut thru the closed window, I rolled off the warm waterbed
and opened up the window and the sounds came rushing into the room, along
with a fresh burst of cold, moist, smelling like damp earth and spring air.
I hunted around for the glasses case and my specs, and after putting them
on, looked out the window to the flower garden outside the window on the
south side of the house next to the shared driveway.