That glorious time of year, after the furnace but before the air-conditioner, when we open the windows and bring the outside in.

I’ve enjoyed watching the birds at my feeders all winter. Now I can hear the trill of the red-winged blackbird and the surprisingly big sound coming out of the tiny tufted titmouse. Then there’s one of the cardinal songs, “cheeseburger, cheeseburger, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew.”

I have several different reasons for welcoming spring this year. The first is the death our furnace several weeks ago, and the second is that I had to buy chopped hay for my aging horse this winter. That stuff is $11.25 a bag, and he’s gone through 29 bags so far. You do the math.

Ouch.

Maybe I saved enough propane, shivering with no heat the last few weeks, to pay for it. (You have my permission to save this for the time when your daughter starts begging for a horse.)

I have been psychologically willing the grass to turn green for several weeks. I see my efforts are at last paying off.

Spring is the time for outdoor clean-up — gathering all the branches and sticks that have come down in the winter and all the trash that blew in from who knows where. And oddly enough, we enjoy it.

Coop us up in the house for long enough, and we actually WANT to go out and pick up sticks. We revel in walking the ditch and collecting cans and plastic bottles. We start singing at the sight of ANYTHING green, even if it’s a yard full of wild chives and bindweed.

Our garage is a place that is horribly abused during the winter. I toss boxes and other junk in there for months with no regard for the future, and then suddenly, with the sun shining in the windows, it has to be dealt with. But I don’t really mind ’cause it’s spring! I gladly spend a day sorting recyclables and running the shop vac just to have an excuse to be outside.

Spring makes our creativity bloom.

We start planning flowerbeds and landscaping and thinking about that paint job that didn’t quite get finished last fall.

We have so much pent-up energy bursting forth that we just can’t help ourselves. We grab a shovel and start digging. We go to the home store and load up the pick-up with decorative stone. We break out the paintbrushes and set to work with new vigor.

Last fall’s complete revulsion to gardening, raking and painting is but a distant memory.

In a couple of months, it will all change.

We’ll soon tire of mowing and outdoor work.

We’ll wilt in the heat.

We’ll retreat behind closed doors and windows to air-conditioned confinement. So enjoy today, for today everything old is new again — it’s spring!