after a rain

Almost April, and it's raining. On our last March walk, the river was the lowest I have ever seen, roots exposed in sinewy twists down to rocks along the channels. But then a soft rain began, continued for several days, and is returning.

mid-march canal

These tiny eraser-sized flowers turn a field into a blue haze. Only laying on my belly can I see the singular delicate regularity of each blossom.

Native witchhazel, the demure forerunner of the showy hybridized models in the market, invokes an olfactory memory of walks in the woods with my father when I was a little child: a broken twig, a pleasantly fresh, just-shy-of-linament aroma.

In a damp expanse of grasses, still not sprung, the marsh marigolds shine out, waxy, reflective of the late afternoon sun.

the pace picks up

By mid-March, things in the garden start moving. Every day, there's a new delight, whether violas that followed us home from the nursery or Costco, or iris reticulata mimicking butterflies at the foot of the mailbox, or a perfect hellebore rising above its winter-burnt leaves

forcing

Forcing. It's an odd verb when applied to cherry blossoms, implying coercion or a breaking of will. I'm innocent! I bring a branch indoors, out of the 30's and into the 60's, merely providing a nudge.

lettuce

The lettuce we planted last week is up! Last summer, we harvested the assortment of greens from April till the end of June--tender, flavorful, a bowlful of a spectrum of greens and reds, with edges lobed, jagged, smooth--and we're hoping for a repeat this year.
I feel an irrational exuberance at the sight. Emerging life presents itself in so many ways: sweetly and oh-so-gradually swelling like the pussywillow, tender greening like the willow strands, or suddenly appearing in tiny green glory like the lettuces.

planting peas

On St. Patrick's Day, my father would plant peas. Together, in that brief period when I was interested before adolescence turned me decidedly in other directions, we would turn over the winter garden with a pitchfork. Startled worms would wriggle away, as robins watched with interest from the nearby hemlocks, biding their time. We broke up the clods of the rich Connecticut soil, and then raked an even surface. With a corner of the rake, he would carve a furrow along the side of the bed, and we would drop the pea seeds evenly down the row.
I don't remember harvesting or eating the peas; I don't recall if my father stopped planting once I drifted away. I do know that, by the time I married Bill, that vegetable garden had returned to grass. Since I've married, every year I begin to peer at our vegetable plot in February with rising eagerness. Bill and I turn it over with our pitchfork and shovel as soon as the earth thaws, enriching it with the winter's compost, waiting for the date. I push the calendar, adjusting for climate change and 300 more southerly miles, and get them in by the second week of March. We harvest and eat every single pea.

crocus

Who couldn't smile? Dainty to the point of fragility--at least in appearance--crocus shout out across the yard, striking against the otherwise subtle brown-sepia-russet backdrop.

confessions of a serial orchid killer

I am a serial orchid killer. As soon as they enter my house, orchids enter a wretched decline, yellowing, withering, despite or because of my attentiveness, wringing of hands, and intermittent neglect. Sometimes, I hand them off to more skilled guardians; sometimes, I forget.
This little champion, however, has not only survived, but rebloomed--a daily source of amazement and delight.

snow, at last

After posting the driest February on record, our area begins March with the first significant snowfall of the year. Light, clingy, glowing as the sun struggles through the gray sky, the snow slows everything down so we can take a collective breath or two. As the sky blues, ice on the window provides a new lens and shortens my depth of field.