You know it's Spring ...

...when colors of soft pinks and greens fall together on your work bench! Photo is a work in progress of a necklace of pink (mauve) and green mother-of-pearl coins beads interspersed with little baubles of gold-filled chain maille.

You also know spring is coming when one is awakened at 2:00 in the morning with the loud, explosive claps of thunder, followed with additional flashes of light and more thunderous claps. The sound of rain outside the bedroom window is always a welcome night sound.

But when one arises in the morning, brews freshly ground Kenyan coffee beans in the ever trusty French press and turns on the local news and weather, one is reminded of the fury of the season as a late-breaking story of someone's home being consumed in a lightning-caused fire plays out on the television. Just a couple of suburbs west of me. The same storm that just went by me moments early caused a life-altering tragedy to someone not known to me, but I put them in my prayers.

I contemplated this morning why my favorite season, the one that brings birth to beauty, comes at us with the fury of angry herd of buffalo. The clash of warm, moist air with that which is cold and dry brings on the awesome force of nature unleashed. And sometimes people are hurt. What brings us beautiful Texas wildflowers next month takes away someone's home this morning.

It didn't help that the home was a couple miles away from the nearest fire hydrant! Very near the shore of one of our ubiquitous man-made lakes, yet the 5 different fire departments that responded had to go the two miles to fill their trucks with the needed water to fight the fire. The fire won the battle. Why couldn't they pump water from the lake??