Palette of a Spring Tableau

Yellow, green, and blue.

Yes, I know yellow and blue make green!  But looking out my window on this Friday afternoon, the dominant colors I see are the yellow sunshine glowing through rustling, green leaves on the nine towering trees gracing our front yard.  With a beautiful light blue sky peeking around them, as the background.

Spring days in Texas can be wonderful.  This season's temperate weather comes early for us here, but if you live up north, just know that summer's scorching heat comes early, too!  This weekend, meteorologists are predicting strong and possibly dangerous thunderstorms, with large hail and maybe even tornadoes.  But when we're not being belted with balls of ice, or cowering in our closets while warning sires wail outside, we residents of north Texas have little to complain about until June.

Weatherwise, that is.

The younger daughter of the older couple who used to live next door to us is having a garage sale, cleaning out stuff that her late mother had collected.  They're moving into the house this summer, and bringing their own furniture with them, naturally.  So the street out front has been busy all day, with people stopping by the sale.  And she's got stuff not just in the two-car garage, but the driveway, the walkway leading to the front door, and across the lawn.  Under a huge tree, she's arranged upholstered furniture like it was still in a living room.  I glanced over there briefly earlier today, and it looks like a spread for one of those high-society picnics England's country house bluebloods throw on PBS's Masterpiece Theater.

When the other next-door neighbor's kids got home from school, the neighborhood mom who'd brought them, along with her own two kiddos, all went across our sun-dappled yard, under our trees, to the other side of our home, where the garage sale is probably winding up for the day.  The kids are all blondes, and their yellow hair fluttered in the breeze. 

After a little while, all the kids - they're elementary-aged - came back across our yard, slowly this time, each one preoccupied by some prized purchase they'd made at the sale.  One person's trash is indeed another person's treasure.  More parents followed behind - the moms, waiting for dads to come home from work.

Across the street, the lawn service guys have shown up to mow and edge.  We're fortunate to have a homeowner in the neighborhood who takes so much pride in her property, her yard crew comes out about twice a week to maintain it.  Unfortunately for her, she doesn't have neighbors across from her who are as wealthy, or as immaculate!

Manicured yards are nice, but I think tidy yards are nice, too.  And a lot less hassle.  Especially when I don't have a lawn service.

Still, it all seems to fit into the late afternoon's mellow tableau.  In my mind, it's pretty close to what a sunny, mild, Friday afternoon is supposed to look like in suburban America.  We don't live in the wealthiest part of town, but our neighborhood isn't exactly deprived of its pleasures, either.  Sometimes, counting our blessings doesn't require advanced arithmetic. 

They say life is what happens when you're waiting for big, exciting events to take place.  And afternoons like this give us a good opportunity to enjoy life that isn't big or exciting.

Hey;  if those storms crash on through tomorrow and Sunday, as predicted, that big weather will be excitement enough.  Besides, we'll need the blue rain to help keep everything nice and green for a while longer.