Spring has sprung and so have they

Spring has sprung and so have we. Restrictions have eased and we are permitted to move freely. We load our vehicle with noise-cancelling headphones, knee pads, work gloves and a cooler packed with bottled water and pressed Italian sandwiches with thick mozzarella and homemade pesto. Our travelling companions – facemasks and hand-sanitizer – have claimed the front passenger seat. I don’t mind sharing.

We head an hour out of town where our son is building a house in the woods. He, his wife and five children must be out of their place in Chicago in four weeks.

If they were to move now, they would have walls around them, windows to shield them, floors beneath them and a roof overhead. There are no steps up to the front door, but they are young and spry. Perhaps the older children could pole-vault.

We aren’t even second-string in this enormous building project; we are more like fourth or fifth-string. The ones you call when you are up against the wall – the walls yet to be painted.

Our motto is that of the medical profession – do no harm. Don’t ram a ladder through the new drywall. Don’t swing a long 2 x 4 into a newly installed window. Don’t repeatedly staple the index finger of your glove to the subfloor.

We self-medicate when we return home. Ibuprofen, ice packs and heating pads. It is a good tired, the rewarding ache of seeing something inch closer to the finish line. It is good to be part of a work in progress after hanging in limbo for so long.

Today, a spiral gizmo on a small tractor is digging post holes to support the deck. Our son asks if I’d like to shovel wet cement into the post holes.

‘I am a delicate flower,’ I call over my shoulder, quickening my pace.

I’m on break. I take a lot of them. My contract requires it. I wrote it myself.

The path leading through the woods calls. Dappled sunlight filters through trees and a cushion of new green growth lies underfoot.

Two old row boats, nearly hidden by tall grass, nestle against a tree. In the bottom of one is a small window. Our daughter-in-law’s grandpa put that window in the boat bottom years ago so he could see the fish below. This is family property, passed down through the generations.

Flowering dogwoods grace the understory of this lush canopy of green. I am searching for the giant turtle that lives in the pond. Never was an animal more suited for social distancing, content to pass time below the surface.

Lately, the turtle has been emerging more frequently, crawling onto a dead tree that has fallen into the water. He basks in the sun’s warmth, stretching his long neck, slowly craning his head this way and that, taking in the wonderful sights and sounds of life in full bloom.

The turtle enjoys being out. So do we.

Lori Borgman finds the funny in everyday life, writing from the heartland of the US. Now, if she could just find her car keys…