of watching the full moon rise over Buck Mountain.

The maple leaves are budding out, coating everything with insidious yellow pollen—which is fitting, as April brings the first full moon of spring.

One name for April’s full moon is the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, which is also appropriate as it coincided with the first of the season’s mowing here on the farm. The dark, clean and dry days of winter, with their hibernating around the woodstove, are over. Bring on the weed whacker, the grass-flecked pants, the ticks, the heat, the sweat, the life. Full steam ahead toward my favorite season.