Finally! A good soaking rain and the land has lost that sense of despair, of wrongness.  Still short on water, but at least the soil is no longer dust.

I always find it frustrating, we don’t get many visitors, family or friends, and when they do come; they almost always come in either July or January.  Entirely understandable given their schedules, but those are perhaps the worst months to visit.  Either drab grey and cold or flat green and humid…..

But April and May….The daffodils are still going, mostly the late white ones now, the fragrant Peasant’s Eyes,  Mount Hood, Sinopel, Princess Zaide; gleaming white with a touch of green.  The clove currants, suddenly fragrant after the rain, are arching gold sprays.  The apples are clouds of white blushed with pink; while on the other side of the house, in the woods, the redbuds and azaleas are almost too much pink, only the dark conifers balance them.  Beneath them, the sparkling white trilliums, bleeding hearts, forget-me-nots, violets, and a thousand ferns unfurl.