It’s right around the last week of February and the first two weeks in March that you can really feel spring taking hold here in the Valley of the Sun. The nights have gone from chilly to just cool, but it is the days – whenever the sun is out, that is – that you notice the seasons are changing. There’s lots of mourning dove action – I see them all along our east and south walls by the pool where they queue up for drinks from the pool fountain. The sun is warm – very warm, actually – and if you’re going to go out now is the time to start putting on the sun screen. More than anything else, however, it is the fruit trees and the lovely sweet fragrance their tiny white flowers give off. Our lemon and lime trees look to be getting ready for a banner year, as is our neighbor’s grapefruit tree just over the west wall. No tree has as strong a fragrance, however, as the mock orange or nectarine tree I walk past on the way to the mail box. To stand there with your eyes closed, the sun warm on your face, and a soft breeze moving the fragrance around: that’s an experience about as close to heaven as I can imagine.

I wish I felt 100% in order to appreciate this time of year but I don’t. The antibiotics I’ve been on since Friday are definitely helping: I no longer feel like sleeping the entire day and I’m not nearly as miserable as I was at this time last week. Each night I take a small glass of Pinot Grigio waiting for it to taste something close to good, and tonight was the first time it didn’t seem to have that harsh, nasty edge to it. So maybe I am coming along.

There’s so much work to do in and outside the house and I’ve have four weeks of nonexistence, with lots of things sliding. If I can only get better maybe I can find time to actually spend some time outside – after all, it’s one of the best times of the year.