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Wednesday March 1979 is sprung The grass isr I the There seems no doubl that spring is here On this the first day of spring it sunny and nearly 60 IF Oh sure we may get more snow yet win ler never gives up easily hut spring must be here we have 3D baby bunnies an t remember so early a spring can you It the first lime the kids have had a decent winter break since the school system started doing the old Easter vacation in March bit I took the old truck Tor a jaunt this afternoon Ac tualiy I was heading to the dump but I took the sce nic route behind the road grader Most of the snow has gone exposing crocuses beer bottles and dog dirt The peacock has been thinking spring for a weeks now showing off his magnificent tall and try ing to seduce the ladies Now thai he a grown up three year old Gabriel baa a tall rivalling the NBC peacock Unfortunately only humans appreciate his beauty His wife certainly I care less- she too busy looking after last year kid and com pla In Ing about her headaches The chickens are getting the treatment too Gab riel flutters and vibrates fanning the four foot tail full of feathery eyes They ignore him and busily cluck their way round the driveway peck ing grovel Which way lo lop The baby bunnies are in various stages of de velopment from cute furry floppy six weeks to blind hairless newborns All baby bunnies are cute but there nothing absolutely nothing as priceless as a multicolored French Lop with his ears making like helicopter wings they try to decide which way to lop Lops have droopy cars as adults but the babies have regular ears till four weeks of age Then the ears start to waft around one up one down both on one straight out at the side Couple this variety with faces like Persian kittens and you got the most charming little beasts this side of heaven By the way the wee bunnies bom during that cold cold weather in February not only every one of them but they grew up to be credits to their mama The donkeys and old Gypsy arc so surprised by the warm weather they re anxious loshed their win woo lies Every morning I put them out with a picnic breakfast only to hang on to the west barn wall as ton weight Gypsy scratches her neck on the loft stairs I swear they come down In a heap one day If she doesn get rid of her hair to her lion soon Making a donkey happy Is easy just stand in the sun for several hours scratching her back The eyes close the lips droop and an attitude of total bliss Is too farewell new column It feels good to happy column about spring because this Is the last SldcroadS Next week In this spot we be doing a column about people for a change You know people nice almost as nice as animals Anyway wo give it a try and see what happens Don t know yet what it be called but ft be good Our editor has given me permission after I d hurled myself round the office kicked screamed and frothed at the mouth to branch out and do a weekly column on an interesting person in the rea dcrshiparca Bclicveme teres ting people around here There so many I may be writing this column till I m there s me thod in my madness So if you have a fascinating relative who led colorful life or a friend with an unusual hobby or a travelling neighbor please let me know We talk Ah Spring mud slush and rain Like most people in this country with any intelligence I welcome the advent of spring which in Canada consists mainly of mud slush cold rain and colder winds It is the end of that suicidal season in which we get more and more depressed irritable and boneweary of living a land where the national sound symbols are the wet sniffle and the barking cough the national sight symbols are the flllcdin driveway and the rusting fender It a trying time For years 1 ve ad a midFebruary holiday to save the national psych from selfdestruction I ve suggested calling It National Love Day the third Monday in Feb a day to love your neighbor your neighbor wife yourself and life not necessarily in that order But I ve been blocked year after year by politicians who fear the opponents might score a victory If it were named Sir John A Macdonald Day or Sir Wilfrid Laurier Day and by the industrialists and business community who blanch and terror at the thought of paying their em for one more nonproductive day in the year Hell a third of their em ployees days are nonproductive anyway They may as well throw in a bonus Yes I welcome spring but there one aspect of it that I very nearly loathe That when the first yellow sun begins to filter through those murky storm windows which we take off until midMay It t the sun that bothers me It the Old Baltleaxe She throws away her survival kit the cataracts are peeled from her eyes and she starts driving me out of my skull Bill Smiley look at those drapes I look They look fine to me Same old ones Green and gold turned to a sort of with cigarette smoke and hot air from the ancient but perfectly serviceable drapes Look at that rug Filthy Look at the chesterfield The Boys have ruined it Jam bananas yoghurt Look at that woodwork It was off white In the fall and off black The wallpaper is Well Ilookupfrommypaperwith every demand and everything looks just the sametomeasitdidamonthago Comfort able Warm Lived- in 1 venture such an opinion It is met with a torrent of abuse self pity and materialistic avaricious- ness You don I care do you You live in a pig pen wouldn you Other men help their wives keep the place decent don they Have you no eyes in your head Aren you ashamed of this wreck room that used be our living room Faced with a barrage of rhetorical questions I shift uneasily and answer Yes or sometimes No never know what to say but It always the wrong thing Frankly I don care And yes I would live in a pigpen if nothing else were available And no other men don t help their wives keep the place decent Not decent men And yes I have eyes in my head two of them one apt to be black after this column appears And no I not ashamed of our wreck room I know who wrecked It and I love them Just the same And if visitors don Hike it they can go and visit someone else with a real room It Is confusing Is it not However I am an amenable chap I don kick a dog Just because he bays at the moon I don t kick a woman just because she begins raving when the March sun filters Into the dugout where we spent the winter I merely blink benignly start talking Yes we should have new drapes How much Yes we should have now chesterfield suite How much Yes it time we got rid of that old dining room suite which we bought secondhand for years ago How much for a new one Certainly the rugs need cleaning and the whole house redecorating How much It always comes out to somewhere around I remind hat we have to borrow from the bank pay the Income tax That we have two cars which we could sell in a package deal to an experienced mechanic for MOO That if we don have the whole house will fall down and we II be silting there In full view on our new chesterfield I suggest that she save money from teaching her piano pupils pay back the she has spent on longdistance phone calls to her relatives and take a Job as a cleaning lady for a year and all will be New everything She counters with arrows about the booze bill the cigarette account and all the money I gamble away on lotteries remind her gently that If she on Real Estate 2