Spring cleaning

"The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms."

Kenneth Grahame, 'The Wind in the Willows'.

God I love spring cleaning. Spring has been teasing us here for a couple of weeks now. One day it will be fabulous, mild, sunny, the chickadees all around singing 'cheeseburger, cheeseburger!' And there is a white-flowered trailing plant covering the trellis of the visitor parking that gives off a scent like frangipani or a scented magnolia. The flower looks like something between a passion flower and a clematis.
Next day it'll be raining again and I'll have to be back in a jacket.

This morning is one of the spring ones, the type you expect at Easter. The hummingbirds are out in the Nature Park, the blueberry bushes have strong, green new growth and buds and the salmonberries are sprouting. This morning, another sure sign of spring, the grass was being cut.

To the north, the mountains, still snow-capped, look clear and majestic. 'Our' mountains, the ones we can name, Seymour, Grouse, Cyprus and then the lions, two peaks that look like sleeping lions lying alongside of one another.

Days like this just make me want to get out and turn soil, or stay in and rummage through stuff that has built up, it makes me want to spray chemicals everywhere, and scrub and wipe and polish, just like the Mole.
We saw a molehill in the Nature Park today on one of the school tours. They're up and at it those moles.

Maybe I need a spring clean, I tend to get dusty and stale during the hibernating months. I could use a de-tox, lose a few pounds, wake up and smell something more than just the coffee. I think that's what spring cleaning is, it's a symbolic ritual really. For mole, who had probably slept through the winter it was part of waking up and starting the year. For us, as a cleaning exercise, let's face it, we clean as we go, but the unburdening of spring cleaning refreshes and awakens us, allows us to see that we can start again.
I want splashes of colour instead of my usual black, and I want to feel my arms weary and my back aching from the exertion of spring cleaning. It's so lovely here on the riverbank.