Saturday, time for my dear old Richard to make a return visit to the vet.  He expresses his opinion of cat carriers, riding in trucks, and going to the vet in long mournful wails.  Released in the examining room, he paces around his carrier, as he knows that a return to it means going back home.

The vet weighs the old man.  He has lost another 6 oz.; this is a concern in a cat who has always been large.  Although I feel that the swelling is smaller, the vet says gently, “We will keep him comfortable; he may develop a head tilt.” He is sixteen years old; but I’m not going to give up on him.  He has been eating well this week, and protesting his meds with much more vigor.  He will continue on prednisone and finish his amoxicillan.  I ask for pills this time, as he makes horrible faces over the liquid prednisone.  He doesn’t seem to mind the bubble-gum flavor of the amoxicillan.

As I drove to the vet, I noted the way the trees have feathered out with new leaves.  Pink and white dogwoods grace the roadsides.  New calves and colts can be seen by their mothers’ sides in fields as I drive by.  Not wishing to be late, I drive on by.

On the return trip, I couldn’t resist getting pictures.  There are a lot of down-sides to living in Missouri.  We don’t have a shortage of ignorant, prejudiced people (does any place?), and we haven’t noticed the recent recessions much because the economy here has hardly moved out of the original Great Depression of the 1920’s.  But it is still possible to hunt, fish and garden here, and the scenery is incredible!

The morning was over-cast, with a hint of mist not quite forming into rain.  With the trees in varying stages of leafing out, “green” is much too simple a term for the wide range of shades spread out over the landscape.

The hard part of this project isn’t finding beauty to photograph, but choosing good areas near places where I can pull off the road.  On the winding curving back-road I was traveling, it is neither polite or safe to just pull over to the side and take pictures.

An old barn near a ploughed field attests to the active agrarian culture.  

Jonquils which have escaped cultivation and gone wild line road ditches.  This particular batch has been encouraged, but patches appear along the side of the road and out in fields marking old house places where the building has long since decayed or been torn down.

As final testimony to the advent of spring, a motor cycle club speeds by.  One or two may not be a predictable harbinger of summer, but when they are out in force we who live in the Ozarks know that spring is truly here, and the tourist season is upon us. Since a lot of the local economy turns on the influx of cash from city folk come out to enjoy fresh air and take in the sights, this signals a busy summer ahead.