Wake up, sleepyhead!

At long last, signs of life in the garden! We have buds on the lilacs, which will be gorgeous by Mother's Day.



A few flowerbuds on the saucer magnolia that I planted three years ago. Last year, I had one glorious bloom, and I'm hoping for more this year. The mature trees are positively vulgar with blossoms at the height of spring, but it'll take a few years before this one is anything but modest.



The rhubarb is looking weird, like some kind of tumor growing next to a pruney foot. But it'll be huge and delicious soon. I just wish it would be ready at the same time as my strawberries so I could make a strawberry-rhubarb pie. But by the time the berries are ready, the rhubarb is old and stringy. So instead, there will be rhubarb pie, then strawberry pie. (And a few weeks after that, raspberry pie!)



Last fall, I filled the garden bed around our little fountain with tulip bulbs, and they're popping up, ready to go. I never noticed before how the foliage is tinged with pink. I'm starved for color now, so perhaps my eyesight is a bit keener. (Notice the rocks. Gardening in New England is all about rocks.)



Ah, but here is the star of my garden at the moment--the moss. My picture doesn't do it justice--it is the greenest of greens, as if it were lit from within. The back and side yards are full of moss (and ferns too, a little later in the season). My next-door neighbor (who's lived in her house since the 1950s) gave me all sorts of tips and tricks for getting rid of moss when I first moved in, but I thought she was nuts. I spent decades in Texas, for Pete's sake, where everything is dry and crispy by May. Why on earth would I want to get rid of cool green moss??



And this ugly thing shows no signs of life in terms of greenery, but it's usually teeming with life all winter long. The birds love this hideous overgrown rambling rose bush. They congregate there, chasing each other from one cane to another, singing their songs and reminding me all winter long that the spring will come again. The bush itself is quite horrible--it's overgrown, half-dead in the middle, with blooms that look gorgeous for all of a week and nasty thorns that catch your clothes (and your skin) all summer long. But I love it for the birds and don't have the heart to take it out.



There is something truly delicious about these earliest days of spring. It's all potential right now. This is the year for the fattest raspberries, or the juiciest strawberries. Maybe I'll have a million magnolia blossoms on the tree, or I'll manage to actually grow tomatoes in our weird and wonderful climate. And every day, I eagerly search for new signs of life. Then seemingly all of a sudden, the spring picks up momentum and the world explodes into color and life (and weeds, of course!). I'm afraid knitting takes a bit of a backseat...