Spring is reluctantly arriving with cool windy days but more sun than we’ve been having lately. The trees are all leafed out and flowers are blooming. PJ’s been picking up flowers and getting them ready to plant out back. Birds are showing themselves and adding color to our days. A small plain woodpecker knocked himself out on the glass of the front window but after a few minutes he came to and hung around in the shrubbery until he was okay to fly off. Sweet little fella.

Where am I?

One of his red headed cousins took up a post on the corner of the shed and spends his time probing the channels carved by the carpenter bees to extract small insects. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen any of the birds from the birdhouses since the neighbor cat did her acrobatics and tried to reach into their sanctuary. We chased her off but the damage was done. I like to tell myself that the birds headed off to a safer spot but it’s just as likely they were scooped out of there later in the night.

Yesterday had plenty of sunshine and the temperature climbed into the sixties. I lubed up my bike and pedaled into the stiff breeze out to Conimicut Point. I claimed a bench and sat watching the gulls leaning into the wind and gliding with the air currents. The 1880s lighthouse stands as sentinel at the end of the sandspit that marks the transition from Narragansett Bay into the Providence River.

Families were hiking out on the sand bar happy to be out of the house and taking a break from being locked down. Last week the parking areas were all closed off but now things are starting to open little by little. I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the sun letting its warmth radiate through my body.

After munching on a Clif bar, I walked out as far as the low tide sand bar would let me and got the view back towards the park area. Hang gliding birds caught the updraft and hung motionless overhead like kites. Time to head back into the wind for the hard ride home.