My calendar says that the first day of spring was supposed to have been March 20. Well, the first full day of spring was supposed to be March 21, but regardless, I did not observe spring really being here at all in March.

There is also the saying, that March weather is supposed to come in like a lion and out like a lamb. But that did not seem to be true this year either. The last few days of March were snowy and cold that even stretched into April. That certainly did not seem like a lamb.

Well, I have now seen a couple of indications that spring may be close at last. At the end of last week, I noticed that some flags appeared on the greens at the Marshall Golf Club. And then on Saturday, there were golf carts and golfers on most of the fairways and around the various holes.

The same thing happened on Sunday morning. (I assume the golfers had gone to early church services for Palm Sunday.)

Other than golfers, some of the early signs of spring have also come along, while other signs of spring have not yet shown themselves. None or at least very few of the area trees have shown new buds even though I have seen a few maple-type trees being tapped for maple syrup.

Last fall I did plant quite a few tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulbs and none of those I planted outside are yet to peak their heads above ground. However, I experimented and planted six or so tulip bulbs in a pot and stuck it on a lower, back shelf of my refrigerator. I finally took it out of the refrigerator in mid-February and the bulbs all sprouted with several, spindly tulips for an early look at spring.

Next year if I do it again, I will wait until the end of February to take it out of the refrigerator so that maybe the plants won’t be so spindly.

As for this year, I hope that my bulbs planted outside will still come to fruition with some better flowers.

jtr

There are two spring traditions that cause me concerns most years. One of those is spring house-cleaning. As many of you probably realize, I not only am not one to be good at spring house-cleaning, it is any kind of house-cleaning that is a problem. I am not a tosser, so accumulate lots of stuff that never makes it into the trash that should have gone there immediately upon receiving.

One of the biggest of those problems are newspapers and magazines. I save all sorts of articles thinking that one of these days I may want to write a column based on the article. I literally have boxes of such. Only now and then do I get really motivated and manage to go through some of those boxes on a mild purge of those treasures.

Of course several days later is when I say, to myslf that I wish I had saved “that.” Then I have to find some other topic about which to write.

In addition to the newspapers and magazines, I am also known as a book saver for the same reason — that is possibly writing an article about the book. In the last couple of years I have managed to find someone who was willing to take part of my collection about George Armstrong Custer and particularly about his Last Battle at the Little Big Horn. I have some other esoteric type book collections such as books on the collection of old fruit jars. A favorite book is, “A Collectors’ Manual: Fruit Jars by Julian Harrison Tououse” copyright 1970. And, yes, I have quite a few old fruit jars that I collected over the years, including green, blue, clear, and amber jars some with zinc lids, some with glass lids, many brands and dated, etc.

I have another extensive collection of history books all related to my growing-up town of Dayton, Ohio. I think I have found a relative who is willing to take that collection off hands even though I am still a bit hesitant to pack them up and ship them.

jtr

The other tradition of spring is the filing of taxes. For many years, I tried to do my own taxes. I usually gave up about four or five days before they were due. I then had to resort to filing for the automatic extension that gave me until October to file my final forms to beat the deadline. Of course that meant that I did nothing from April until early October when I set to work again to try to finish them on a timely basis.

That also likely meant that I missed out on a number of ways I could have reduced my tax bill. I discovered that was true a bit later when I finally decided that it would be best if I hired a professional to put together my returns for me. The professional ended up revising a few previous forms for me and getting me much better results than I could ever do by myself. I have stuck with having someone else doing my returns for quite a few years now and will likely continue to hire it done for ever.

This year, however, I had lots of trouble even accumulating all of the data that I needed to have to give to my accountant. So for the first in a long time I may end up having to have my accountant ask for an extension.

Now that sounds pretty bad except when I hear how far behind the IRS in terms of completing their responsibilities.

Wish me luck.

Until next time: Oh, Fiddlesticks!