Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

By David Heiller An Easter miracle occurred last weekend. When we left for a family get-together in Minneapolis Saturday morning, a foot of snow covered the landscape at our home in Birch Creek Township. When we returned Monday afternoon, all the snow had melted. It was like seeing a nephew you hadn’t seen in years, and suddenly he is a foot taller, with a deeper voice and stubble on his face. Malika  and Miss Emma outside  in the small window between "The Snow is GONE! and the mud is here!" But what a sight on Monday. The woodpile gaped like an open wound. I located the pile of slab-wood that didn’t get stacked before our Thanksgiving storm. The bent hood of an old Ford truck emerged, plus sheets of tin for a roofing project. And those rusty band saw blades from an old sawmill were curled where I left them. Waiting. The garden sneered at us, cornstalks and Brussels sprouts leaning this way and that. Weren’t we supposed to clean that last fall, a...