Chris Hardie

Recently, I joined the estimated 300,000 people each year who are diagnosed with Lyme disease — an infectious ailment caused by a bacterial infection carried by the deer tick.

It’s been a week since I watched Dad take his last breath. I selfishly tried to keep him with us a little longer but my life-saving attempts fell short.

We never forget the sorrow but it’s how we move on that lifts our spirit. From the ashes of anguish arises the determination to carry on.

Freedom of speech and protests are not always easy. They are sometimes divisive. But they remain an essential part of our democracy as an avenue for change.

Summer is finally here, but continued hijinks by Mother Nature make it anything but normal. And this recently completed spring will be an outlier for phenologists — those who study the cyclical ecological events and their natural timing.

I haven’t driven much lately but have noticed two new road signs erected in my neck of the woods that make me feel proud. There are now along Jackson County Highway C two green road signs that say “Franklin, unincorporated.”

The signs of spring — including birds returning to the Hardie farm — are in full swing. Soon it will be summer. The cycle of life turns.

The Hardies have reopened their Brambleberry Winery, implementing approrpiate social distancing and hygiene policies due to the pandemic.

There are a few magical weeks every May when Mother Nature’s perfume fills the air. She wears essence of lilac, an intoxicating and alluring fragrance. It permeates our souls, lifts old hearts and washes away her winter cruelty. It’s the smell of spring.

It’s a terrible incongruity to mention polar vortex in the same sentence as May. The Arctic air mass sent me grumbling back to the woodpile.