Tuesday

April is the month when a garden person bounces with excitement. You shop for plants, you fill your pots, you begin to fulfill the winter dream of creating the perfect flower beds. I'm getting notices of plants, ordered in the coldest days of January, being packed and shipped. All are scheduled to arrive withing the next two weeks.

But all this seems unreal for me. My favorite gardening centers (for annuals) -- Natalie's and Kopke's -- are both opening this Thursday for the season and I am always there on that first day, but this year it just seems premature. It's too cold to fill the tubs (even though I have always filled them toward the end of April). It really has been a very very late spring. It's hard to believe, for example, that not a single farmette daffodil has bloomed yet. So far, it's been crocuses and snowdrops. 

But today I spot the first Siberian Squill (though this year maybe I'll use its more colloquial name -- Star of Holland). Finally. Variety!

Though the narcissus are still shut tight. (Hey, I super appreciate them on the breakfast table. From the store. Dance! Stop hogging the spotlight!)

On the upside, I'm wondering if I'll have that rare confluence of daffodils and lilacs outside. They are a heavenly match, but in years of an early spring, the daffodils fade before the lilacs bloom. Maybe this year we'll get lucky! 

In the afternoon, I pick up a happy Snowdrop.

On a warm day, she likes to pause outside. For the chickens. The tree. For the feeling of spring.

It's a good day to look around you and take note of all that's fresh and beautiful. 

Frittata time for dinner. With asparagus. Still from the south, but in a couple of weeks, the market stalls will be full of it here.

How lucky we are to be living now, in this place, and at peace.

With love...