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Category: spring

Outside on Earth Day

Outside on Earth Day

It’s my first outdoor post of the season, and I’m writing it on Earth Day. The glass-topped table is perpendicular to the way it usually rests — a remnant from Easter dinner’s crowd of 20 — so I have an expansive ringside seat on the back yard.

As I type these words a glossy brown fox trots across the lawn and disappears behind the ferns. A few minutes ago I spotted a pileated woodpecker — a primeval-looking creature if ever there was one — drilling down into the stump of an old oak in search of breakfast. Hawks cry, squirrels hop, and a mama cardinal nibbles delicately at the feeder.

Before me flames an azalea that’s far too big for the garden in which it’s planted (a common failing of mine). Behind it, near the trampoline, blooms a pretty pink azalea transplanted decades ago from a friend’s house in the District. Ferns unfurl. Wood poppies pop. The lavender azalea behind the house isn’t as abundant as last year, due to some necessary pruning (we could no longer see out the kitchen window!), but it’s still striking. Did I mention it’s azalea season in my neck of the woods?

And finally, the most exciting garden news: The lilac I’ve celebrated for years has finally produced more flowers than I can count. To inhale its fragrance is to be transported.

Transported is what I am on this Earth Day. The long winter is finally over.

Cold Snap

Cold Snap

I wore a parka and gloves on yesterday’s walk, and last night the furnace whirred off and on more than it has in weeks. Our up-and-down spring is down again … or up, depending upon your preference.

The chilly spring day has one thing in its favor. It pauses the procession of bloom. Today it’s paused the Kwanzan cherry at the peak of its resplendence. It was a tall, scrawny specimen when we bought it years ago. I didn’t even know what it was at the time. A cherry tree, yes, but what kind?

I didn’t know about the gnarled trunk it would develop or its splashy pink flowers or how it would bloom later than the Yoshino. This is a tree to be reckoned with: its roots have spread halfway across the front yard, which gives the mower a bumpy ride.

But for a few days in April, the Kwanzan takes our breath away. And this year, thanks to the cold snap, maybe it will take our breath away for a few days more.

Cool Spring

Cool Spring

It’s one of those days that looks like spring but feels like winter. The Bradford pears are blooming, their white arms shivering in the breeze.

Hyacinths hesitate, wondering if it’s warm enough to venture above the soil.

The daffodils and cherry trees have made their decisions. They’ll brave the temps .. and last longer because of them.

AaaaChoo!

AaaaChoo!

Spring arrives today and with it sneezes, sniffles and coughs. It’s high pollen season here in the mid-Atlantic, and scratchy throats and itchy eyes are the result.

I try to ignore seasonal allergies, which I can do since mine are middling at their worst, but some people can’t. They’re forced to stay inside during these lovely days, especially folks in Wichita, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Memphis, which were ranked the five worst cities for allergy-sufferers in the country.

Two Virginia cities ranked in the “top” (worst) ten, Richmond and Virginia Beach. The D.C. area did not, in part because rankings take into account the number of allergy docs, and we have a lot of them.

My remedy for all of this is simple: Have Kleenex, will travel.

Skipping Ahead

Skipping Ahead

The faint yellow fuzz at the top of witch hazel tree has fully sprouted. From my office window I can see the first faint signs of spring. Typically, I watch spring unfold gradually, in place here in the mid-Atlantic.

But later today I leave for a place that is really in the mid-Atlantic, as in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean — the island of Madeira. Three hundred miles off the coast of Morocco, Madeira has a temperate climate. Spring should be in full flower when we arrive Friday morning.

Here’s to spring, then, whether it unfolds gently or hits you in the face. Both ways are good.

(Wisteria in the Madeira Botanical Garden, March 2024)

Unzipped

Unzipped

We’re not quite there yet, not ready to shed jackets entirely, but at least I unzipped mine yesterday — a small but important victory.

It reminds me that although my impatient personality wants things to happen quickly, they happen slowly for a good reason. The slow fade and the gradual reveal are healthier than jumping ahead.

But tell that to the spring-starved souls who’ve had to endure a real winter for a change. We want spring and we want it now. All in good time, nature reminds us. Today, maybe I’ll get away with a sweater. A heavy one, but still.

“Open Door Policy”

“Open Door Policy”

The term sounds vaguely familiar, like something I learned long ago, and a quick search tells me that it was a system of equal trade and investment in China in the first half of the 20th century. 

I chose the title with another thought in mind: the way it feels to leave the front door open on a perfect June afternoon. An open door policy made possible by a screen instead of glass, and perhaps only good for another day or two. 

So far, we’ve been able to get by without air conditioning in the house: opening and closing windows at strategic moments, gathering in the morning coolness like an arm full of crisp line-dried laundry.

They’re calling for much higher temps by week’s end, so we may have to give in and close up the house. But it’s been lovely to leave doors and windows open, to breathe in and out with the day.

A Whiff of Honeysuckle

A Whiff of Honeysuckle

The aroma of honeysuckle is in the air, and every year I want to hold onto it, to have it close at hand so I can inhale it whenever I walk out the door. I dream of rooting a sprig of the vine, planting it, and training it to tumble over my back fence.

This year I came close to doing that, was even scouting out potential plant “donors.” Then I came to my senses. Introduce another invasive species when our yard is full of knotweed, stilt grass and bamboo? I must be crazy.

Honeysuckle is a wild thing, after all, and it’s best left where it is, mostly in the park or common land. A whiff may be all I get. But sometimes, a whiff is enough.

Rose Time

Rose Time

The climbing rose peaked a few days ago, but the plant is still weighed heavy by blossoms, and when I sit on the deck to write the air is filled with fragrance. 

When I look out at the yard through its flowers, it’s a little like looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses.

But at some point, I must squeegee off the glass-topped table and abandon for a minute my journal or laptop to sweep up petals with the old broom I leave outside. 

What better way to enjoy the rose than by immersing myself in its detritus, still soft and pearly pink?

Taking Comfort

Taking Comfort

What do you write about when one of your oldest, dearest friends lies full of cancer in a hospital bed? The same thing you write about when your parents are dying, when you’re sick or confused or worn out. You write about the world around you.

It’s the second day of May. Roses are budding, birds are nesting, clematis is blooming. Last night, the first hummingbird of the season made its appearance. It’s a perfect spring morning.

Not perfect for everyone, of course, but at this moment, I feel its perfection. And I take comfort in describing it, parsing it, moving it from the real world onto the page.