May, leave March alone!

My time has been short in past weeks, thus the lack of new posts. This will be a short one.

The weather in my home city has been refreshing and beautiful lately. The crocus and daffodils have come and gone, the iris are blooming and the dogwoods are trying to catch up. The world is full of color and the scents of new growth.

So why am I frustrated?

It isn’t right! This is the weather of April, if not May! Where is March? What has happened to it? Too soon, too quick. Spring is precious, I do not want it compressed into a single month. I do not want the rest to be devoured by summer. I prefer my seasons equally divided, and resent having them curtailed.

Am I spoiled? Certainly. Perhaps I should not feel entitled to a proper Winter (which failed to come this year) or a proper Spring. I will try to not be resentful of the rebellious seasons, but I do not think I can help being sad.

For all the sadness, though, the beauty and freshness of the reborn plants fill me with joy. I cannot even complain without remembering how grateful I am that there are trillium, virginia bluebell and soon… just in time for Easter, as always, there will be lily of the valley. Those fragrant white flowers, at least, seem to know what time of year it is.

Crocus

My mother bought me crocus bulbs for Christmas.

Actually, she bought them for me before Christmas, as I needed to get them into the ground before a hard freeze. She has trouble with the squirrels eating hers, crafty tuft-tailed devils.

She told me how deep to plant them, and an hour or so later, grubby and cold, I had them in the ground. Now if only it were late February or early March, when these tenacious, tough, delicate, brilliant eggs explode from the ground in their rush to be the first spring flowers! The snowdrops will laugh, for they are first, but the crocus know how to make an entrance!

These are pictures I took of my mother’s crocus, several springs ago. She has given me all these varieties save the dark purple. The gold remains my favorite, but its beauty is more compelling in person than film can convey.  Its stripes, near the base of the petals, are purple, but I have yet to coax my camera into noticing.