Awake, thou wintry earth -
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!
~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn"
Early this week was the first time I could actually
feel Spring in the air.
Smell it in the crisp, cool, February winds. So Wednesday I went to our local nursery and bought all the flower and vegetable seeds for this year's garden. I even bought some live plants - the lovely
Fritillaria meleagrus (a.k.a. Snake's head) and promptly planted them in the ground, against the nursery staff's warning that it's still Winter and to wait until March. But heck, the bulbs are coming up, and they're
selling the plants right now, so they
must be safe to put in the ground now, right? So plant I did, right next to the
Hellebore hybridus that is already blooming, I might add. Of course, that night, it just
had to snow. The next morning, I went out to see if my beloved plants were still alive. And behold! They were doing just fine, nicely tucked in with their leafy groundcover from last Autumn's rakings:
Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer.
~Geoffrey B. Charlesworth
Fritillaria meleagrus (a.k.a. Snake's head) 
So carpe diem and enjoy this lovely snowy Spring of ours. I know I sure am!
