Spring has arrived in Cleveland. I went to the Rocky River Reservation this afternoon to practice using my new camera. I am not an accomplished photographer, but I did my best to document the beginning of the season.

It’s usually a lie to color the sky blue with your crayons if you live in Cleveland. Typically the sky is some shade of gray. I have come to appreciate the subtleties of the color gray and check the sky daily to see which hue the day brings. There is the gray that is almost white (like today), but I can tell it’s not white only because the gulls contrast it. Sometimes the sky is steel gray and factory smoke looks white against it. There is the gray that makes the day look dusky and everyone’s automatic headlights come on. My favorite gray sky is when there is a broad wash of palest gray that is gets pushed aside by invading almost-black clouds as they are blown rapidly across the lake; this gray comes complete with a wind soundscape.

Yesterday there was a fire in my neighborhood. Someone told me that the house that burned was vacant. The damage is not good, but I met many of my neighbors for the first time as we watched it burn.

I just started reading the novel, The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread. This novel is by former Cleveland Press writer Don Robertson. I first read about this book from the Cleveland History Blog. I checked it out from the library and just finished the first chapter. It's a page-turner already.