We pretty much live in the backyard during the summer. So every year we go a little crazy with plants and flowers. I tried to exercise a little restraint this year, retire a few terracotta pots, and avoid the jungle of heirloom tomatoes we had in years past. One year I planted purple perilla in pots on the fronts steps, and I have been pulling perilla from the pavers ever since. Last year, the lime green potato vines threatened to take over the patio, so I've decided to stick to purple instead. Doesn't it seem you have to learn things the hard way with plants?

More Pretty

Okay, so not strictly pretty, but still. Everything is coming alive all at once. I wonder, how would you describe Spring to someone who had never experienced it?

Spring, in Earnest

It was unseasonably warm in Central Ohio yesterday, giving us the opportunity to make serious headway in cleaning out our gardens and doing a little wandering. My weeping cherry just exploded with blossoms in one day, and today's rain washed all the blossoms to the ground. Ah well, you take the good with the bad and look forward to many warm days ahead. After such a long winter, sleeping with the windows open feels like some magical, unreal dream. It's like going from a black and white television to a color one ... you can't help but be mesmerized.

Nuances

I think when it becomes evident that Spring will indeed arrive, we begin to get greedy. Once we get a taste of those first little signs of Spring, we start looking for the lush fecundity of more flowers, more plants and more birds. I'm trying, instead, to focus on those early signs, and appreciate each little phase as Spring slowly reveals all her layers and colors. She follows her own schedule.

Games

Spring advances, retreats, and avdances again. Is she toying with us? Perhaps. We'll wait.

Signs

After a few weeks of harsh temperatures, today felt nearly tropical, so I went out to hunt down a few signs of Spring.

Recently, some friends had us over for a lovely dinner (Hi, Mindy & Stephanie!). They'd just had their kitchen renovated, and one of them pointed out to me that her favorite part of the granite countertops was the areas that revealed depths beneath the surface. That stuck with me. I liked that a lot.