First green

St. Patrick's Day is an enchanted time - a day to begin transforming winter's dreams into summer's magic.

Only some Borland to share tonight: "It's all a matter of proportion, and of the season. Two months from now there will be bees and blossoms and balmy air, and so much green that one new shoot will go unnoticed. But right now the sight of a crocus poking up and a few courageous daffodil tips showing is reason for exclamation and delight. Spring!

It isn't Spring, of course. Not yet. But those first few tips of green, that venture out of Winter darkness into the light again, mean that things are beginning to happen down at the root. We won't necessarily open all the windows tomorrow, and we certainly won't take down the storm sash or put away the overcoat and the galoshes. Ice isn't yet something that comes only out of the refrigerator, and we still know what a snowflake looks like. But to know again the gold or purple chalice of a crocus and to see the green fingers of a daffodil certainly warms the heart.

Right now, those few shoots of new, fresh green are more important than a whole forest of green will be in May. Those shoots are a promise of May's green forest and the performance of March's seasonal miracle. March, when the hilltops are still as brown as December, when you wonder if you will recognize an oriole's song again, when you think even a dandelion might be beautiful, needs such miracles.

Maybe there aren't many such shoots yet. There shouldn't be, in the order of things. Miracles aren't a dime a dozen, after all, even this kind. But they do catch the hungry human eye and they lift the spirit. We yearn for them, and we cherish them. We haven't yet lost our sense of proportion. We won't, until May." --from Sundial of the Seasons

The neighbor's snowdrops are tattered now, but she has crocus! There's also what I think may be a cherry tree with a sunny southern exposure that's come into bloom in the last day or two. The star magnolia in my front garden has just started peeling back her winter's velvet to reveal the pink-edged negligee underneath. There's still only the fingertips of daffodils though. The oriole's song is still a dream, yes, but the chickadees are singing their "fee-bee, fee-bay" songs. What's the weather report from your neighborhood? Is it still snowing? ;-)