Spring peeps

Tonight is the first night the peepers are singing. It’s an otherworldly sound after the long Michigan winter: a high pitched trill, shifting a half tone up, then down, then silent, then up then down. This is the first night Ben’s window is open also:it’s after eleven and he’s just settled down.

Today, we went to see Ben’s friend Will play in the baseball tournament in Chelsea. Will’s team won and Will was the courtesy runner for the pitcher, and he was wonderful, even though he struck out in the 7th inning, it didn’t matter. He got his runs in with grace and speed, and his team won. Ben got to retrieve three spectacularly foul balls from the blue team hit back over the stands, and return them to the purple team players in the dugout. One of the boys asked him if he was Will’s brother, and though he swelled with pride he answered truthfully.

Ben also made two new friends, even though we were rooting for the purple team and they were rooting for the blue (their big brother was dressed in blue. ) We spent the third through the sixth inning at the playground nearby, Ben and his two new friends swinging and sliding.

And there, at the playground on the edge of the Chelsea Schools athletic fields, was a nature preserve. A swampy and marshy area with a real muskrat (we saw him dive into his burrow), two Canada geese and bluebirds. A nesting pair, right there between two baseball games and the slides, in boxes provided by the school district. The real treat was when two fledgling bluebirds came out and were fluttering about, parents hovering, learning to fly.