Verdant

apple blossoms

The ceaseless dribbling rain and grey skies tend to keep me inside in the early springtime, and this year was no exception. February and March and April weather here is like a steady drumbeat of dreary. The payoff? One morning you look outside and you can actually see the sky and you realize that while you were inside reading books and watching movies, all of the plants got together and started a frantic party.

There are suddenly leaves on the maple tree that are as big as a tea saucer. I never saw the buds because I was too busy looking down to keep rain off of my glasses. The azalea and rhododendron bushes have started their cycling of blooms. Right now the icy pink and delicate purple ones are open, and I can see colored buds on the dark red bush in the front yard. The apple trees and quince tree in the backyard orchard have tiny leaves, and even some tightly furled flower buds. Not bad for their first spring in the ground. I'm not sure if we'll have any fruit this year, but the trees are starting to look like more than sad sticks.

lawn, shag-style

The lawn? The lawn has Gone Crazy. The grass was a good foot high when I nosed into the shed on Tuesday to drag out the mower. I was prepared to do a little voodoo prayer over it. After all, my "extensive winterization procedure" included such rigorous steps as:
1. After the last mowing of the fall, let the mower run until it is out of gas. This way I don't have to drain it.
2. Take a stick and scrape clods of grass off of the blades.
3. Push it in the shed and wonder what I really should be doing to prepare the engine to rest for a good eight months.


That mower? My lovely, awesome, cherry-red mower? I poured fresh gas into it, checked the oil, and it started on the first pull. The lawn surrendered to me.

lawn, tamed