View from the North 40: A soft-fleshed human in an inhospitable land

Weed, bug and heat season is not the time to be made of soft, fleshy parts — and, yet, here I am. Again.

There’s this one part of spring that I really look forward to each year. Not that there’s anything wrong with spring as a whole. It’s no autumn, and, as a whole, it beats the pants off of summer and winter, but there’s that sweet spot of spring when everything has turned green and it makes my eyes sigh.

That sweet spot isn’t only about everything being green — it’s pretty and all with the shiny new leaves and the perfect carpet of green — but the real attraction is that from a distance you...