Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep - Slightly More Happens - April Adventures

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Our stories tonight carry us into the bright days of Spring, with stories about time spent in gardens and neighborhood streets, enjoyable chores and small adventures, seeds and shovels, and the joy of growing sunlight. Subscribe to our ⁠Premium channel.⁠ The first month is on us. 💙 It’s time to turn those “What Ifs” into “cha-ching” with Shopify today. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at shopify.com/nothingmuch Go to AquaTru.com now for 20% off your purifier using promo code NOTHINGMUCH. AquaTru even comes with a 30-day best-tasting water guarantee. We give to a different charity each week and this week we are giving to Hearts 4 Minds Inc. Helping de-stigmatize mental illness. Pre-Order Links for Kathryn's New Book ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠NMH Merch, Autographed Books and More!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Listen to our daytime show ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stories from the Village of Nothing Much⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sit Meditation with Kathryn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pay it forward subscription⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Nothing Much Happens⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more Village fun! The Cabin awaits with this playlist! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get more, nothing much happens with bonus episodes, extra long stories, and ad-free listening, all while supporting the show you love. Subscribe now. Ever feel like your inner critic just won't clock out? That's exactly what getting better with Jonathan Van Ness is here for. Each week, Jonathan talks with experts and real people about the stuff that keeps us stuck, like stress, self-doubt, and burnout, and how to move through it. It's honest, practical, and it's not about being perfect, just about getting a little bit better.

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That's Shopify.com slash nothing much. Welcome to a special longer episode of bedtime stories for everyone. In which slightly more happens, you feel good and you still fall asleep. I'm Catherine Nikolai. I write and read all the stories you hear. on nothing much happens. Audio engineering is by Bob Wittersheim. We give to a different charity each week.

And this week we are giving to Hearts for Minds, Inc., helping to destigmatize mental illness. You can learn more about them in our show notes. Many of you have asked for longer episodes, and we are delivering. Once a month, we will get to you. give you a two to three-story episode here on the free feed and a five to six-story episode on our premium feed. In fact, over on premium, we regularly publish episodes that are over nine hours long

and are always adding more. So if that sounds helpful or joyful to you, let me remind you that the cost comes out to just 10 cents a day. that the first month is on us. Learn more at Nothing Much Happens.com. Just as with our regular episodes, these stories are simply a soft place to rest your mind. All you need to do is listen.

I'll tell the stories twice, and I'll go a little slower the second time through. Our stories tonight. Carry us into the book, bright days of spring, with tales about time spent in gardens and neighborhood streets, enjoyable chores, and small adventures, seeds and shovels, and the joy of growing sunlight. I've been thinking more lately about the quality of the water I'm drinking every day,

because even when it looks clear, it doesn't always mean it is. In fact, most tap water contains things like chlorine, lead, and even microplastics. And standard filters just don't always remove them. That's why I started using Aquatru. I've had one on my counter for two years now. And if I could reasonably pack it in my luggage to take it with me when I travel, I would. It's a countertop purifier with a four-stage reverse osmosis system that removes 84 contaminants. So you're getting water that is actually clean and better tasting. I like that it's simple. There's no plumbus. or installation, you just set it on the counter and use it. It's been featured in places like Business Insider and Popular Science, and most customers say their water tastes cleaner and fresher.

Go to aquatrue.com now for 20% off your purifier, using promo code, nothing much. Aquatru even comes with a 30-day best-tasting water guarantee. That's aquatru.com, a-Q-U-A-T-R-U-com. promo code N-O-T-H-I-N-G-M-U-C-H. Now, settle in. Be at ease. The day was what it was. And now we are here. Nothing to do.

No plans to make or hold on to. Just a wave of deep, restorative sleep about to wash over you. Take a deep breath, in through your nose, and out through your mouth. One more time, breathe in, and sigh. Spring at the allotment. When I'd first seen the flyer, snow was still on the ground. I'd been coming out of my neighborhood market, a bag of groceries in my arms, and seen it pinned to a bulletin board.

Community Garden. Plots available. It was decorated with someone's hand-drawn flowers and baskets of vegetables. I stood for a bit, booted, mittened, zipped into my heavy coat, and wrapped in scarves and hat, and dreamed about green things and blue skies. I'd reached out with my clumsy mitten and pulled off a scrap from the flyer with a phone number and fumbled it into my pocket.

A few days later, when a friend was sitting at my kitchen table for a cup of coffee, I'd pulled it out, and we'd made a plan. We, each of us, had a few hand-me-down garden tools, and just a little bit of experience. But we also had a deep yen for becoming successful gardeners, and we figured our zeal would fill in the gaps of our knowledge. We divvied up the work. She'd go to the library

and get us a few books on what was best to grow in this part of the world. And I'd have a long talk with my green-thumbed grandfather and borrow his almanac and seed catalogs. We'd both root around

for gloves and rakes, spades and shears and loppers. Soon we had a stack of books with torn-out magazine articles folded into the pages, charts of what was going where and when, and a dusty basket of the tools we'd need to make it happen. We had mud boots and packets of seeds, and a clear sunny Saturday to begin our garden. We planned to meet at the allotment in the mid-morning and start to turn over the soil. The day was bright and warming. And stepping out of the car,

I could smell the clean scent of freshly tilled earth. We found our plot, sketched out in the soil with stakes and string, shook hands with the neighbors, tucked our hair into bandanas, and got to work. The soil was tilled and soft, but still needed to be evened out,

and we broke up clumps of dirt with hands and hose. We consulted our charts and walked off the sections. Here we'd plant the herbs, basil and oregano, lavender and rosemary, sage and thyme. Here we'd plant runner beans and green beans. Here rows of lettuce. Here are tomato plants. In the back row we'd have a line of sweet corn, a section of zucchini, a few broccoli plants.

cabbage, cucumbers, and a small section of potatoes. We weren't sure about the potatoes. They seemed tricky. But we'd done our reading and had a container of cut seed potatoes ready to go in. Growing anything, I supposed, was a gamble. An act of faith. That rain would come. That sun would shine.

that the natural processes buried in the cells of our seeds and seedlings would activate and pollulate. It seemed worth the gamble, meriting the faith to try. So we dug trenches, spaced our seeds and plants, and carefully patted the earth down around them. By the time the sun was high above us, we'd shed our jackets, and our faces were smudged with dirt. I stood to stretch my back and saw my friend, her hands on her hips, looking out at the work we'd done.

Ready for a break, I called out. Yes, please, she said, stepping carefully through the rose to wash her hands at the spigot. I'd packed us a basket for lunch, and we'd carried it over to the picnic table and opened it up. I had a thermos of Earl Grey tea, still hot and a little sweet. I'd made a mess of sandwiches, thick slices of sourdough, spread with mustard, and a tasty mix I'd made of mashed garbanzos, soft avocado, diced cucumbers and pickles, tahini, a bit of dill and lemon, and plenty of salt and pepper. I layered it onto the bread with sprouts and tomato slices and wrapped them in tea towels. I had a few apples for us and a whole batch of my date bars,

topped with a cardamom crumble, tucked in wax paper in an old cookie tin. It was more than we could eat, but I'd planned to use the extra to make some friends. In fact, a few minutes after we spread out the lunch, the family from the next plot over sat down to share. our table. They unpacked their own basket. And we chatted about our seeds as we ate. They had two little boys who ran around in the sun, coming back to the table for a moment or two, to take a bite

out of a sandwich, or a piece of fruit, and chasing back to play. They'd been planting in the garden for years, and promised to offer advice as the season progressed. They poured us some of their lemonade, and happily took some date bars. We all got back to work. By the time we were done, and gathering up our tools, our little plot was a tidy patch of neat rows, careful mounds, protecting seeds that would sprout soon, and evenly spaced plants that would eventually need cages and stakes and strings to hold them up by the end of the summer. We see. We see, stood and proudly admired what we'd done. We'll have vegetables coming out of our years in a few months, she said.

I guess we'd better learn how to can, I laughed. The next great adventure. Spring cleanup. I'd first heard about it when I noticed a flyer tacked up on a telephone pole on the corner. A simple invitation to all neighbors. on the block to join in on a day-long cleanup effort. We were asked to bring a stack of lawn bags, some good, strong shears or snippers, and a pair of gloves. We'd meet on Saturday morning

by the triangle, which is just a bare green space at a fork in the road, and decide where to start. once word got around. Things started to get a bit more elaborate. If we were going to clean up, gather litter and wraygold leaves, wouldn't it be nice to also plant a few flowers? The triangle, for example. What if somebody brought over a rototiller and turned some of that blank green space into a flower bed.

And there were a few homes on our block where folks needed help, cleaning off front porches, hanging out the bird feeders, and taking down storm windows. They were small chores that could be done in a jiffy if there were a few extra hands to share the work. but might just not get done at all without it. Could we organize some teams for that? And now that it looked like we'd have a full day of work,

we'd need some food, snacks through the day, and maybe a potluck supper, or a pizza party at the end of it, that we could all share. Phone calls were made, meetings held over fences, and then a full plan laid out in new flyers, again tacked onto telephone poles and tucked through letter boxes.

There were categories of needs, such as flats of flowers, spare tools and snacks and drinks. There was a way to signal if you needed help with something around the house. And a place to indicate if you could offer some of that assistance. You could sign up for various locations and times, and I was glad that all I had to do was take a few boxes, and let those with a passion for organizing do the rest. The day of the cleanup dawned bright and warm. We'd pushed the whole thing back a time or two, waiting for a full week,

of temps in the 50s or higher, so that we could give pollinators time to move out of their winter digs and stems and leaf piles. Now we'd had a week of sunny, warm days. Today would be a bit over 60 with no rain in the forecast. I was up early.

It's strange what you get excited. excited about. As you get older, I couldn't wait to get out there to start pulling weeds and gathering rubbish and meet more of my neighbors. I'd made a couple dozen brownies the night before. As one of the tasks I'd signed up for was snack table. I'd made some with walnuts, some without, and they were cut into little three-byte squares, and in a big, old-fashioned Tupperware, I'd gotten handed down from my mother. Do you remember the old Tupperware containers? I had the big rectangular box, which in my memory had been read, but when I'd gotten it from the back of the cupboard, I realized was actually a classic 70s burnt orange.

I'm pretty sure I'd taken a few years' worth of birthday cupcakes to school and this solid piece of Americana. And now, it held enough brownies to keep the whole block supplied. I'd also gotten a mustard yellow iced tea pitcher. the one with the lid that had the button on top to suction it into place. It had certainly held plenty of Kool-Aid in its years, but I figured I'd go with something a little more grown-up and made a water infused with strawberries, basil and lemon.

When I heard front doors and front gates opening, and swinging shut up and down the street. I gathered my goodies and tools and set them gently in my red flyer wagon and pulled it down the driveway and toward the triangle. We were still meeting there where we would set up the snacks

and break into groups. As I got closer, I saw that we had an excellent turnout. It looked like nearly the whole neighborhood was there. And I got to chit-chat with a few people I knew by sight to learn their names and hand out a few sneaky brownies while we waited to be told where to begin. Finally, we heard a voice calling for quiet.

And we hushed up and listened to one of our organizers. She called out various groups and pointed where to head, and off we went. I left my Tupperware on a long folding table under a canvas canopy and pulled my wagon to where I'd be working. I'd volunteered to rake and clean out an empty lot. at the end of the street, and had brought a long rake, a hand-trowl, and plenty of yard bags. The birds were singing above us as we shook out the bags and got to work. The smell of spring is already so energizing. But when you start to work in the dirt, it gets even better.

there was that fresh scent of rain-soaked soil that rose up as we raked through the grass and leaves. We found a few soda cans and paper scraps and other sundry bits of refuse, which I offered to take back to my place to recycle. I was glad I'd brought my wagon. Soon the lot looked much less abandoned, much more friendly and clean, and one of our neighbors walked by, with a few full bird feeders hanging from his fingers.

He'd made them over the winter in his workshop. And since no one was using this lot for the moment, what did we think about hanging them in the trees? We thought it was a great idea, and we hung them on long wires and made a plan to fill them through the summer. Across the street, the storm windows were coming down off a beautiful old farmhouse. I knew the man who lived there. He was older and had some trouble getting out. I sometimes brought him groceries. when he'd let me know what he needed, and I realized the windows hadn't come down in a few years,

if we hadn't asked to help today. They certainly would have stayed put another year. I watched my neighbors carefully sliding the glass panels off their hooks, carrying them around to store in the garage. Someone was sweeping his broad front porch. and checking that the chains holding his swing were sturdily attached. At noon, someone rang a bell from the triangle, and we all took a break,

washing our hands at a spigot in someone's yard, and eating sandwiches from paper plates. The air was warm and smelled fresh. With all the dirt we'd turned over, the sun was shining. down on us, and we had the rest of the afternoon to take care of each other and the space we shared. Spring was here. Spring in the yard, the snow had finally gone a few weeks before, and after a few days of good strong wind and sun, the mud was drying, and it was time to get out into the yard.

and see what needed doing. I was anxious to be out there. It had been a long winter, and I felt sun-starved. I missed the feeling of fresh air on my face. It was a sunny Saturday, and the temperature was rising into the 50s. We smiled at each other as we put on old boots

and found our gardening gloves. The dogs were as eager as we were, barking at the back door and jumping with spring fever. I let them out and laughed as they leapt and tripped over one another. They ran for the pure joy of it, chased around trees and scratched at the fresh earth. We stepped out into the sunshine and took great lungfuls of air into our chests.

The smell was that wonderful combination of dirt and last year's leaves. Fresh buds and moss. Our property was deep with gardens and paths and a bit of woods at the back. The dogs knew where it stopped and started and stuck close inside the borders. I ambled off toward the shed with one of the dogs close behind me. We were all so curious today

when I opened the shed doors and let the sunlight pour in. Dust particles leapt up and swirled like a murmuration of swallows. I stood and watched and dug out some trowels and rakes and yard bags and dumped them all into a wheelbarrow and rolled it out into the yard. We were quiet as we worked, listening to the sound of the birds, making plans in the trees above us.

We might stop and say something, or call out to the dogs, or one another, or laugh. But mostly we just worked. It felt so good to put the beds in order, to clean out old leaves and dead growth and see the fresh black dirt ready for planting. After a few hours' work, we looked up to see dark clouds rolling in. The temperature was dropping, and rain was on its way.

We packed our tools back into the shed and set the yard bags under the porch so they wouldn't get wet. The dogs had long ago gotten bored and gone. on in, and although the light was fading, we reached for each other's hands, and took a walk through the yard. To look at what we'd done, this was always our habit, at least a few evenings a week. We would walk together through the beds and paths, sometimes with wine glasses in our hands. and point out to each other, new growth, fresh flowers. Our paw prints, when the first drops landed on our necks and faces. We turned back to the house.

Inside, we found the dogs stretched out over sofas and rugs, snoring away, and sometimes kicking their legs, and imagined sprints. We lit candles and started a fire with the last logs of the season. Hungry? I asked. Hmm, came back. I had made a pot of soup that morning

and now re-lit the stove under it. It was a lentil soup with potatoes and carrots. Indian spices. I sliced up a lemon to squeeze into it and turned to a loaf of sourdough bread, bought the day before. I cut it into thick slices and laid them on a sheet pan. I turned down the broiler and drizzled olive oil over the bread. The soup began to simmer again. As I slid the pan into the oven while the bread toasted. I sliced open a couple avocados that I managed to catch at exactly the right moment. They were a perfect green, soft enough to mash, and with no black spots. I remembered the broiler in time and slid the toasts onto a platter. I scooped the toasts. I scooped

Doubt healthy spoonfuls of the avocado onto each toast and mashed it in with my fork. Then plenty of salt and pepper, some black sesame seeds, and dashes of hot sauce on top. I took out a huge wooden tray and began to lay it, a cloth, so things wouldn't slide around, bowls of lentil soup, the lemon wedges, the platter of toasts, napkins, spoons, more salt and pepper, a bottle of fizzy water, glasses, and the half bottle of red wine left from the night before. I could hear the fire crackling, and the soft sighing of the dog. As I headed into the great room, we had a deep sofa in front of the fire, and I found room on the table in front of it for the tray. I sat down and leaned back into the cushion.

An arm slid around my shoulders and pulled me close. We leaned into each other, nose to nose, cheek to cheek, lips to lips. The rain fell outside. Spring at the allotment. When I'd first seen the flyer, snow was still on the ground. I had been coming out of my neighborhood market, a bag of groceries in my arms,

and seen it pinned to a bulletin board, community garden. Plots available. It was decorated with someone's hand-drawn flowers and baskets of vegetables. I stood for a bit, booted, mittened, zipped into my heavy coat, and wrapped in scarves and hat, and dreamed about green things, and blue skies. I had reached out with my clumsy mitten and pulled off a scrap from the flyer,

with a phone number and fumbled it into my pocket. A few days later, when a friend was, was sitting at my kitchen table for a cup of coffee. I'd pulled it out, and we'd made a plan. We, each of us, had a few hand-me-down garden tools, and just a little bit of experience. But we also had a deep yen for becoming successful gardeners, and we figured our zeal would fill in the gaps of our knowledge.

We divvied up the work. she'd go to the library and get us a few books on what was best to grow in this part of the world, and I'd have a long talk with my green-thumbed grandfather, and borrow his almanac and seed catalogs. We'd both root around for gloves and rakes, spades and shears and loppers. Soon we had a stack of books with torn-out magazine articles, folded into the pages, charts of what was going where and when, and a dusty basket of the tools we'd need to make it happen. We had mud boots and packets of seeds, and a clear sunny Saturday to begin our

garden. We planned to meet at the allotment in the mid-morning and start to turn over the soil. The day was bright and warming. And stepping out of the car, I could smell the clean scent, a freshly tilled earth. We found our plot. Sketched out in the soil with stakes and string, shook hands with the neighbors, tucked our hair into bandanas, and got to work. The soil was tilled and soft. but still needed to be evened out,

and we broke up clumps of dirt with hands and hose. We consulted our charts and walked off the sections. Here we'd plant the herbs, basil and oregano, lavender and rosemary, sage, and thyme. Here we'd plant runner beans and green beans. Here are rows of lettuce, here are tomato plants. In the back row we'd have a line of sweet corn, a section of zucchini, a few broccoli plants, cabbage, cucumbers, and a small section of potatoes.

We weren't sure about the potatoes. They seemed tricky, but we'd done our reading, and had a container of cut seed potatoes. ready to go in. Growing anything, I supposed, was a gamble, an act of faith. That rain would come, that sun would shine, that the natural processes buried in the cells of our seeds and seedlings, would activate and pollulate. It seemed worth the gamble, meriting the faith to try, so we dug trenches, spaced our own. our seeds and plants and carefully patted the earth down around them. By the time the sun was high above us,

we'd shed our jackets, and our faces were smudged with dirt. I stood to stretch my back and saw my friend, her hands on her hips, looking out at the work we'd done. Ready for a break? I called out. Yes, please, she said, stepping carefully through the rose to wash her hands at the spigot. I'd packed us a basket for lunch, and we carried it over to a picnic table, and opened it up. I had a thermos of Earl Grey tea, still hot, and a little sweet. I'd made a mess of sandwiches, fixed slices of sourdough, spread with spicy mustard, and a tasty mix I'd made of mashed garbanzos, soft avocado, diced cucumbers and pickles, tahini, a bit of dill and lemon, and plenty of salt and pepper.

I'd layered it on the bread with sprouts and tomato slices, and wrapped them in tea towels. I had a few apples for us, and a whole little. batch of my date bars, topped with cardamom crumble, tucked in wax paper in an old cookie tin. It was more than we could eat. But I'd planned to use the extra, to make some friends. In fact, a few minutes after we spread out lunch. The family from the next plot over sat down to share our table. They unpacked their own basket. And we chatted. about our seeds as we ate. They had two little boys who ran around in the sun,

coming back to the table for a moment or two, to take a bite out of a sandwich or a piece of fruit, then chasing back to play. They'd been planting in the garden for years and promised to offer advice as the season progressed. They poured us some of their lemonade, and happily took some date bars. And then we all got back to work.

By the time we were done and gathering up our tools, our little plot was a tidy patch of neat rows. Careful mounds, protecting seeds that would sprout soon, and evenly spaced plants, that would eventually need cages and stakes and strings to hold them up. by the end of the summer. We stood and proudly admired what we'd done.

We'll have vegetables coming out of our ears in a few months, she said. I guess we'd better learn how to can. I laughed. The next great adventure. Spring cleanup. I'd first heard about it when I noticed a flyer tacked up on a telephone pole on the corner. a simple invitation to all neighbors on the block to join in on a day-long cleanup effort.

We were asked to bring a stack of lawn bags, some good strong shears or snippers, and a pair of gloves. We'd meet on Saturday morning by the triangle, which is just a bare, green, space, at a fork in the road, and decide where to start. Once word got around, things started to get a bit more elaborate if we were going to clean up, gather litter, and rake old leaves. Wouldn't it be nice to also plant a few flowers? The triangle, for example, what if some Somebody brought over a rototiller and turned some of that blank, green space into a flower bed. And there were a few homes on our block where folks needed help, cleaning off front porches, hanging out the bird feeders, and taking down storm windows.

They were small chores that could be done in a jiffy. if there were a few extra hands to share the work, just not get done at all without it. Could we organize some teams for that? And now that it looked like we'd have a full day of work, we'd need some food, snacks through the day, and maybe a potluck supper or pizza party at the end of it, that we could all share.

phone calls were made. Meetings held over fences. A full plan laid out. And new flyers, again, tacked onto telephone poles, tucked through letter boxes. There were categories of needs, such as flats of flowers, spare tools and snacks and drinks. there was a way to signal if you needed help with something around the house and a place to indicate if you could offer some assistance. We could sign up for various locations and times.

And I was glad that all I had to do was take a few boxes and let those with a passion for organizing do the rest. the day of the cleanup dawned bright and warm. We'd pushed the whole thing back a time or two, waiting for a full week of temps in the 50s or higher so that we would give pollinators time to move out of their winter digs in stems and leaf piles. Now we'd had a week of sunny, warm days.

Today would be a bit over 60. With no rain in the forecast, I was up early. It's strange, what you get excited about as you get older. I couldn't wait to get out there to start pulling weeds and gathering rubbish. and to meet more of my neighbors. I'd made a couple dozen brownies the night before, as one of the tasks I'd signed up for was snack table. I'd made some with walnuts, some without,

and they were cut into little three-byte squares, and in a big, old-fashioned tupperware, I'd gotten handed down from my mother. Do you remember those old Tupperware containers? I had the big rectangular box, which in my memory had been read. But when I'd gotten it down from the back of the cupboard, I realized was actually a classic 70s burnt orange. I'm pretty sure I'd taken a few years' worth of birthday cupcakes to school

and this solid piece of Americana. But now, it held enough brownies to keep the whole block supplied. I'd also gotten a mustard yellow. Ice-te-pitcher, the one with the lid that had the button on top to suction it into place. It had certainly held plenty of Kool-Aid in its years, but I figured I'd go with something a little more grown-up and made a water infused with strawberries, basil and lemon. when I heard the front doors and front gates opening and swinging shut up and down the street. I gathered my goodies and tools and set them gently in my red flyer wagon and pulled it down the driveway and toward the triangle.

We were still meeting there where we would set up the snacks. and break into groups. As I got closer, I saw that we had an excellent turnout. It looked like nearly the whole neighborhood was there, and I got to chit-chat with a few people I knew by sight, learn their names, and hand out a few sneaky brownies while we waited to be told how to begin. finally we heard a voice calling for quiet, and we hushed up and listened to one of our organizers.

She called out various groups and pointed where to head, and off we went. I left my Tupperwares on the long folding table under a canvas canopy and pulled my wagon to where I'd be working. I'd volunteered to rake and clean out an empty lot at the end of the street and had brought a long rake, a hand-trowel, and plenty of yard bags. The birds were singing above us. As we shook out the bags and got to work, the smell of spring is already so energizing. but when you start to work in the dirt, it gets even better. There was that fresh scent of rain-soaked soil

that rose up as we waked through the grass and leaves. We found a few soda cans and paper scraps and other sundry bits of refuse, which I offered to take back to my place to recycle. I was glad I'd brought my wagon. Soon, the lot looked much less abandoned, much more friendly and clean,

and one of our neighbors walked by with a few full bird feeders hanging from his fingers. He'd made them over the winter in his workshop, and since no one was using this lot for the moment, what did we think about hanging them in the trees? And we thought it was a great idea. And we hung them on long wires

and made a plan to fill them through the summer. Across the street, the storm windows were coming down off a beautiful old farmhouse. I knew the man who lived there. He was older and had trouble getting out. I sometimes brought him a few groceries when he let me know what he needed.

And I realized the windows hadn't come down in a few years. If we hadn't asked to help today, they certainly would have stayed put Another year, I watched my neighbors, carefully sliding the glass panels off their hooks and carrying them around to store in the garage. Someone was sweeping his broad front porch and checking that the chains holding his swing were sturdily attached. At noon, someone rang a bell from the triangle. Then we all took a break, washing our hands at a spigot in someone's yard and eating sandwiches from paper plates. The air was warm and smelled fresh.

With all the dirt we'd turned over, the sun was shining down on us, and we had the rest of the afternoon to take care of each other. and the space we shared. Spring was here. Spring in the yard. The snow had gone a few weeks before. And after a few days of good, strong wind and sun, the mud was drying, and it was time to get out into the yard and see what needed doing.

I was anxious to be out there. It had been a long winter. And I felt sun-starved and missed the feeling of fresh air on my face. It was a sunny Saturday and the temperature was rising into the 50s. We smiled at each other.

As we put on old boots and found our gardening gloves. The dogs were as eager as we were, barking at the back door and jumping with spring fever. I let them out and laughed as they leapt and tripped over one another. They ran for the pure joy of it,

chased around trees and scratched at the fresh earth. We stepped out into the sunshine and took great lungfuls of air into our chests. The smell was that wonderful combination of dirt and last year's leaves, fresh buds, and moth. Our property was deep with gardens and paths and a bit of woods at the back. The dogs knew where it stopped and started and stuck close inside the borders, stumbled off toward the shed with one of the dogs close behind me. You are all so curious today. when I opened the shed doors and let the sunlight pour in particles,

leapt up and swirled like a murmuration of swallows. I stood and watched, then dug out some trowels and rakes and yard bags, and dumped them all into a wheelbarrow and rolled it out. into the yard. We were quiet as we worked, listening to the sound of the birds, making plans in the trees above us. We might stop and say something,

or call out to the dogs or one another, or laugh. But mostly, we just worked. It felt so good to put the beds in order to clean out the old leaves and dead growth and see the fresh black dirt ready for planting. After a few hours' work, we looked up to see dark clouds rolling in. The temperature was dropping, and rain was on its way.

We packed our tools back into the shed and set the yard bags under the porch so they wouldn't get wet. The dogs had long ago gotten bored and gone in. And although the light was fading, we reached for each other's hands and took a walk through the yard to look at what we'd done. this was always our habit. At least a few evenings a week, we would walk together through the beds and paths, sometimes with wine glasses in our hands, and point out to each other.

New growth, fresh flowers, or paw prints, when the first drops landed on our necks and faces. We turned back to the house. Inside, we found the dogs stretched out over sofas and rugs, snoring away and sometimes kicking their legs in imagined sprints. We lit candles and started a fire with the last log. of the season. Hungry? I asked.

Hmm, came back. I had made a pot of soup that morning and now relit the stove under it. It was a lentil soup with potatoes and carrots and Indian spices. I sliced up a lemon to squeeze into it and turned to a loaf of sourdough bread

bought the day before. I cut it in thick slices and laid them on a sheet pan. I turned on the broiler and drizzled olive oil all over the bread. The soup began to simmer again as I slid the pan into the oven. While the bread toasted, I sliced open a couple avocados, but I had managed to catch at exactly the right moment. They were a perfect green, soft enough to mash, and with no black spots. I remembered the broiler in time and slid the toasts onto a platter.

I scooped out healthy spoonfuls of the avocado onto each toast and mashed it in with my fork. Then plenty of salt and pepper, some black sesame seeds and dashes of hot sauce on top. I took out a huge wooden tray and began. to lay it, a cloth, so things wouldn't slide around, bowls of lentil soup, the lemon wedges, the platter of toasts, napkins, spoons, more salt and pepper, a bottle of fizzy water, glasses, and the half bottle of red wine left from the night before. I could hear the fire, crackling and the soft sighing of the dogs as I headed into the great room. We had a deep sofa in front of the fire and I found room on the table in front of it. For the tray, I sat down

and leaned back into the cushion. An arm slid around my shoulders. and pulled me close, we leaned into each other, nose to nose, cheek to cheek, lips to lips, the rain fell. Outside, sweet dreams.