Spring Haiku

Green limns bare branches
While we shuck jackets and shoes
Spring covers and uncovers

It's that time of spring when my favorite green is on display. I love it because it's brief and promising. As the new leaves emerge, trees are outlined in this yellow-green, bright and optimistic. You'll see it for a week or two, then it's gone and we move onto summer's full-leaf green. We've had a week or two of unseasonably warm weather: Yesterday it was 78 or so and it inspired our first few tulip blooms. Ah... spring.

Walking Home

While I have yet to have coffee on the porch, those days are coming. The light is longer, stronger and simply more present. I walked O to school and myself to work earlier this week on an unseasonably warm day when temperatures climbed into the 70s. I exhaled a breath I'd been holding since September.

Tiptoe Near the Tulips

It's finally happened! The spring bulbs are peeking up. It's been cold and snowy and after last week's three-to-six inch snowstorm I was just about convinced we'd never see spring. But you can't keep Mother Nature down.

Seed Starting

It's time!

This weekend we got out our new seed-starting trays and did a little planting. The first step, of course, was to find the darn things, then find the potting soil and seed-starting mix, and then let both thaw since we'd left them outside.

But, eventually, it all came together.

This year we're using a hot pink kit we bought from Gardener's Supply. The planting cells are hard plastic and sit on a tray with a water reservoir and a capillary action mat. Fancy!

We also set up our first grow light, also from GS, and topped the tray with its clear plastic dome.

O and I started small with one tray of lettuce seeds and amazingly, they germinated in three days! Holy Bountiful Biodome Batman!

Next up: Tomatoes.