Tent Season

It’s supposed to be a warm weekend ahead, like the last one. The grass around here is green already — it turned green while we were in Florida. Soon, bourgeois impulse will lead me to mow it. Next to the walk in the back yard, there isn’t “a host of golden daffodils fluttering and dancing in the breeze,” but is a small row looking for the sun. They too emerged while were away. There’s also green fuzz on some trees.

It was so warm last weekend that I cooked some hamburgers outside on my simple barbecue, and later pitched our new tent for the first time. Got it when it was too cold to think about using it, but now we are. It’s larger than I’m used to, but not too hard to set up, with intermittent help from no. 1 daughter.

We’ve outgrown my bachelor tent, acquired ca. 1988. I think the last time we used it was long before Ann was born, when we went looking for Charles Mound in extreme northwestern Illinois—the highest point in the state. Turned out it was on private land, and inaccessible, but we had a good weekend anyway.