Early Spring

Has your eye adjusted to unfurled leaves in the trees, to the greenest of grass so thick it is like a cushion underfoot, to the jungle-like tangle of new growth and to dense shade along city sidewalks?

I love the cool, wet spring we have had so far, and I am still in the stage of wonder that is our reward for going through winter – eat your hearts out, Californians!

Before we get used to it some time in May, the reawakening of our senses of sight, smell, hearing and even taste (try some young dandelion leaves in your salad) is the best treat of springtime. If I saw the small, delicate Virginia poppies in the fields all year they wouldn’t race my motor; but to see them out right now is thrilling BECAUSE I know that they will be gone in two weeks and I must carry their saffron beauty in my mind all winter.

Of course there IS a cloud hanging over all of this. It is called summer, which in Central Virginia with its heat and humidity can be in any one of three categories: hot, terrible hot and insufferable. We can always hope for the first category, but what I really hate is drought, which often develops in mid-summer, replacing green with gray and wilting our spirits along with the wildflowers.

But for now I couldn’t be happier.