The little kids at school are growing increasingly restless, noticeably wiggy and impatient; the teacher and the ed-tech are perhaps even more so. Nobody wants to go back inside after recess. Kindergarteners flop belly-down across the swings and hang, almost dosing, limp and comfortable like a big fat cat over somebody's forearm. Adult staff and passers-by park at the picnic table and grow roots, imagining the comfort of staying put, breathing in an outdoor warmth not felt in many, many months. Spring fever hits hard in a place where classic "spring days" can be counted on your fingers. It is nearly apple blossom time, which means some of the finest days of the year on Matinicus Island. We are resolved to allow ourselves this privilege.

Memorial Day may or may not be the start of summer, but around here, we're happy if it proves to be the start of spring. Sure, there have been pleasant and mild days on and off for the past couple of months, but between them come weeks of bluster and chill. Throughout most of the official spring season the wind still has a sharp edge, we still run a wood fire in the kitchen stove in the morning. We're still getting 45-degree nights. Some years, the mud, the rain, the general squishiness in the spring pervades every aspect of island life. This year has been dryer than normal, which is a mixed blessing. In any event, real spring, with warm breezes, with more than the occasional flower, with no threat of the returning cold, tends to hold off until the bitter end.

All three of my little oak saplings survived another winter. This defies the conventional botanical wisdom and we are certainly gratified. A young boy at the Common Ground Fair three or four years ago was selling small trees in the Youth Enterprise Zone tent; at the end of the day, he had a few acorns in peat cups, a young nurseryman's left-overs, going for a quarter apiece. I handed over the few coins in my pocket. "Wait until spring," he told me, "keep them moist, and they will grow." "They won't grow," assured just about everybody else, "they're just ol' acorns some kid had, and anyway if they do, they won't survive out here. Oaks don't like it out here." Too much salt in the air? Wrong kind of soil? Somebody must know, I do not, but so far, despite such wisdom, so good.

Most of the flowering trees on the mainland are a good deal ahead of us; we will, again, not have any lilacs for Memorial Day. The tulips take a sound thrashing in the wind. Baby maples sprout all over the place in the vicinity of the cemetery, including in my garden among the barely-visible sprouts of recently-planted peas and onions. No point in planting in April, not in these conditions. Over 400 garlic plants don't mind this a bit. I had no Baltimore orioles this year interested in my gift of oranges, but other people have spotted them. I think they made their annual stop here a quick one this time. There have been plenty of eagle sightings, though, and cardinals, which spend the winter. My neighbor Ann tells the story of a male cardinal battling ferociously with a red truck. She eventually threw a tarp over it so he wouldn't bash his brains out.

A beautiful Memorial Day weekend kept the boys at Penobscot Island Air busy. I haven't met the latest new pilot yet, but word is he's a retired, and thus lawfully bearded, commercial airline pilot. A neighbor told me that his comment on the new job was something like "Much better, much more relaxed…you don't have to shave."

The new Internet tower is up; it feels like we're living under the Eiffel Tower now. We've been joking about how it sort of goes with the d`cor. Nouveau-industrial.Oil boat day and ferry day fell at the same time a few days ago, and in the middle of the chaos on the wharf, the school kids had set up a bake sale. As about half the island found themselves more or less obligated to hang around for a while, waiting for fuel, the kids cleaned up on the refreshments. Had the Sunbeam not been working on a mechanical repair that day, they'd have been in the mix as well, meaning three large vessels using our wharf at the same time. This is not really bad timing…it is the reality of the tide calendar, as our wharf is only accessible on the tide, and as you know, not every day offers a high tide at a convenient time in the middle of the business day. At any rate, chocolate cupcakes help when the line is long and one's own truck is way toward the back. (It might require more than chocolate, though, to keep a man smiling when a couple of the guys jump the line.)

Our local singer-songwriter (sternman-carpenter-lawyer-teacher) has just put a couple of short music videos up on Youtube, for those who might like a glimpse of Matinicus…videos not at all in the usual sense of trash-flashy dancing girls, acid trip computer manipulations or el-kabong concert footage, but rather, apple blossoms and antique trucks in the bushes, lobstering, the little airplane, random moving snapshots from around the island. If so inclined, have a peek at www.youtube.com/user/nathusseymusic.

"OK," some of you are saying, "this is ridiculous. Flowers and trees, uh huh, that's all very nice, but what is it you are not telling us? You can't be serious, that all you people are doing over there on that island is enjoying the spring weather…we happen to know things are rougher than that. What about the post office, what about the fire department, what about the lobstering, what about the politics and the school budget and the new teacher, what about the price of oil, what about the whale rules and the sink rope, what about the money, what about the economy, what about all the fights?"

Yeah, what about them?

Peace to us, and a nice weekend, and a bake sale, and a Baltimore oriole, and a new song on the guitar, and a burger and a beer with friends on Memorial Day weekend. We're ready.

Eva Murray goes tip-toe through the garlic on Matinicus Island.

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