Any Day Now!

Spring has been very slow in arriving in our part of the world this year.  Winter hung on just a little too long, and other than one or two days of spring-like temperatures to tease us, the unfolding of all the lushness and green, and the great sigh of relaxing into warmth, has eluded us so far.  The trees are poised but hesitant.

But there are the little harbingers out there if you're willing to look.  Last week my friend and I drove to an Amish farm to buy pansies.  Every year I say I won't plant them because it's soon too hot for them and they need to be replaced.  But, every year I'm charmed by their wonderful yellows and blues and purples and sure enough, I have a tray of them on my front porch.   I love the johnny-jump-ups for their cheerful little faces.  My daughter used to plant them with her dad, when she was a toddler in her denim overalls, needing two pudgy hands to wield her trowel.  In they'd go right next to her dad's vegetable garden.

The Amish children at the farm told me about the little twin goats that had been born this year...they didn't look alike...one brown...one black.  The frisky little black one was entertaining us as he leaped over and over again,  straight up onto the other animals' backs!

Today we are still in our warm jackets, but here in my neighborhood is a trail through woods along a creek that is full of brave little trailblazers heeding no mind to the temperatures and just doing their best to delight us with color and hope for the season to come!

Even the poor, lowly and usually-maligned dandelion looks great this time of the year!