When the days are born gently, when the breezes pass softly, and  when flowers appear on the earth-it is spring. Everywhere I look, something is announcing the arrival of the fairest season. Daffodils and hyacinths are the first with good tidings -but they aren’t the only ones. The spirea bushes with their stark white blossoms are especially beautiful. Their flowers, when properly examined, look like tiny roses, fit for a fairy wedding-and in the spring such things are possible. We always stood in front of spirea for “Easter Sunday” pictures.

Many of the trees are as lovely now as they have ever been. Their blooms of pale pinks and lavendars are in drastic contrast to their appearance just a few weeks ago and are nothing short of a miracle, really.

A few days ago, I was riding with a dear friend of mine, Jo Dee, when we saw a bright red cardinal sitting in a young bradford pear.  We looked at one another and without uttering a sound, we celebrated. Such ways can only be practiced among the dearest of friends. Friends that understand the heart of one another- and even the coming of spring can not  “out-shine”  that.

Of all  the seasons, it is the spring that makes me remember the most. I remember that  in my earliest times, the spring meant that little ponies and goats were born on the farm. That was bigger than Christmas for the children that called the farm home. We would get up early, hoping we would be the one to find the new arrivals. At least once, I did. What a big production unfolded when there was a birth of a foal! The men would separate the mom from her baby briefly for a quick examination of the foal. It was always a big commotion for a few minutes and the children were allowed in on it. Within a few weeks, this foal would be following us around like he was one of us and had been there all along.

Rabbits are not born cute-that takes a while. The goats had twins and triplets!  Spring is a time to be born.

When the women visited one another in the spring, it meant long  walks around the yards to see the flowers that appeared on the earth, and to hear long stories of their origins.

 For me, it was like sitting through long sermons. I heard how an old aunt had “broken off a piece” of something, and now it was a fragrant bush. Some of the flowers came from cousins “over the river” (which now a-days is called Pitt county) And there were always flowers that mothers had shared with daughters. “From mama’s garden” was in everybodys’ yard. They shared small pieces of plants, roots and stems to stick in dirt, and wait for.

I remember that time now fondly. Today, we go to garden centers and find large assortments of  about any plants we have read about-we do not need any “ties that bind”. We will not tell long stories about how this bush or that flower bed came about. Children may not hear that not only did Aunt Agnes have the most beautiful bed of “thrift’-but that she made the best pickles too.

The hope of a gardener remains unchanged. They are a people of perpetual hope which is most often rewarded- and pleasant surprises occur regularly. Forgotten fall bulbs show up in the spring and finally a bush blooms that didn’t do so the last few years. Young trees begin to cast shade. Gardeners see these things and unknowingly, gardeners transfer their sense of hope to other seasons of life. They “wait and see” often, and expecting the best outcome , go about their business . What didn’t go well once, may the next time. Hope is a wondrous thing and quite necessary  for  a person.  It has come in handy at the rabbit patch on more than a few occasions.

Spring is a time for jasmine breezes and my Pop’s “goldenrods”. It is a time to be born. It is a time of inspiration from the past and it is the time of beginnings  for our future . Hope  settles in the human heart and inspiration stirs in the soul when flowers appear on the earth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

really.