Three proofs of Spring

I received three very welcome proofs that Spring has in fact arrived this past weekend. The first was when our winter depressive cat , Laurie, asked to go outside for the first time in months. True, she only dashed from green spot amidst the brown to green, and asked to come back in after eating only six early-blooming violets- but she had gone outside of her own volition for the first time in months.

The second sign of Spring was when one of our younger cats, Tabitha, found a full grown fieldmouse and brought it into the house. She dropped it on the living room floor, and a soccer game ensued; she and her sister Hillary on one side, older brothers Simon and Garfunkle on the other. Alas, it would appear that fieldmice are not of adequately robust construction for such games; with only three goals scored, the game had to be called on account of equipment breakage.

For the last proof, we turn from the fieldmouse to die fledermaus- our own namesake species, the Indiana Brown Bat. Two of them were in my backyard Saturday night, tumbling through the sky as only a bat can. I sometimes wonder if those amazing aerobatics are really necessary to catch bugs, or if they do it just because they can?