It’s hard to know when spring starts (or ends for that matter) up on the mountain. It’s rarely marked by a lack of snow. The lake starts to melt, sometimes. The days are sunnier, sometimes, and sometimes Tammi remembers to put the “spring flag”, covered in lilies, outside her front door. There’s nothing very regular about our springs though. And it’s often hard to know when summer is really coming, besides that big red circle around June 17 on my calendar.

It always seems to creep up on me, like a static laden pant leg. I’ve sort of felt it inching past my ankle all along, and I would have caught it if I were paying better attention, but instead I’m often left embarrassed, my mismatched socks exposed to the world.

In recent years to help my absentmindedness, I’ve put up one of those electronic counters on my computer’s desktop. At present, I have 15 days, 17 hours, 32 minutes, and 46 seconds left. I, by no means, am dreading that first Thursday of staff training, but the fear has never left me, that unholy feeling that maybe I’m not good enough, maybe I won’t be prepared, that there probably is something I forgot to do.

It comes though, summer that is, like that dastardly pant leg, and more times than not, being embarrassed that I have one green sock on, and one orange, puts me at ease, keeps me humbled that I get to do something I love, that I get to change lives with pizza and green beans. That somehow, magically, fresh sweet corn and fudge brownies make the day better.  That the difference between a good and bad day can be a bowl of mashed potatoes.

15 days, 16 hours, 14 minutes, and 13 seconds left. . . I better get a move on. Summer is coming, and it’s going to be awesome.

-Baker John