A SEASON OF HOPE

We’ve been having storms all week. Storms that blow in with high winds and rain, hail, snow, alone or mixed together – you name it. Yesterday I managed to get out for a little while between storms and check out our neighborhood, which is coming back to life after the winter. It’s nice to know that even if it still seems like winter to people, plants are convinced that it’s spring.

The roses are all putting out new growth, and should be blooming again soon. Along with the spring bulbs, the entrance area to the local new development is planted with garish primroses in every primary color, looking like plastic flowers from the Wizard of Oz. Primroses are probably my least favorite flower, just because they look so artificial. I guess my aesthetic philosophy requires some imperfection in order to achieve the right balance.

In the woods, the Indian plum (Oemleria cerasiformis) is in bloom. It’s one of the first native shrubs to bloom every year, a sure sign of spring. I never thought to smell the flowers before, but was pleased to find that they have sort of a cat-piss and blackcurrant fragrance, not strong, but definitely there. The Oregon grape plants (Mahonia aquifolium) are also blooming, but had no fragrance that I could detect. Maybe it will develop as the flowers mature.

Everything is extraordinarily wet and green. The frogs were croaking the other night and the robins are hopping around the back yard hunting the fat, juicy, pinky-brown earthworms that are hidden everywhere in the ground.

Events in the US and elsewhere may be depressing, but spring is bringing it’s usual message of hope for better times. Maybe not in politics, but at least outside our doors.

[Flower photos are from Wikimedia. There was too much wind to get a good photo of anything outside yesterday.]