April 16, 2025 

Stephanie Dotson 

Spring Blooms 

Good evening to all reading this letter!  I like this challenge because it involves my favorite season, spring. 

It’s a little weird but I started a new journey in my life, due to my health. In October I retired from my school job.  It was difficult because for the first time in my life, I had truly found a purpose.  My grandma heart was filled every single day! It was an honor, and a dream come true.  The problem was how my health kept affecting my job and the anxiety of failure made things worse.  I had a great deal of support, but the symptoms would not be ignored. 

Fastforward to March 2025 and sitting on the front porch enjoying nature. You could hear the squirrels barking at each other because someone dared to invade its territory. The hummingbirds returning from their winter season in search of nectar.  They are quite thirsty and hungry. They are so very beautiful and one of my new jobs is making sure my feeders are clean and topped off. Each day passed and I just felt a stronger and ever growing need to go outside. Watching everything blooming and growing gave me such a sense of peace. 

I decided that I needed to grow something! A few years back we planted a garden.  It was so much fun but also infuriating.  We have a squirrel, I will call Tom, who made it a mission to steal our veggies. His family lives in a hollow cedar tree in our front yard. Our big boy green and red tomatoes in the garden were a sight for sore eyes. I looked each day to see their progress and dreamed of dashing a little salt on it and taking a big juicy bite! Poof, they started disappearing.  My husband caught Tom one day stealing our very last green tomato.  He said Tom had difficulty managing to handle the big tomato and maintain his footing at the top of the privacy fence.  The last my husband saw Tom; he and the tomato had fallen over the fence.  I think his eyes were bigger than his stomach. It’s so funny because this year we had a fence installed in our front yard.  Tom will occasionally start walking the fence and drop to his belly using his hands and feet to slide him along the top of the fence. That Tom squirrel is an action hero! 

We decided we were not taking any chances this year.  I used some hydroponic kits and currently have lovely herbs delighting my nose and senses inside my house.  The only concern now is keeping my cat summer from trying to eat the herbs. Spring to me is a time for growth.  I will grow, no matter what difficulties might arise, failure is not an option.  If there is a spirit in my heart and breath in my body, I will bloom this spring. 

Prowritingaid score is 68.