It is an odd year, so cold for so long.  Now Spring is clearly hurrying towards Summer, in some respects. The peas and lettuce are sulking, but the currants have already set berries; the Sugar Maples are fully out, but the locusts still stand gaunt against the sky. The ground is still cool, but already great thunderstorms have swept across the hills.

Spring though is always hurrying, rushing forward.  Not only there is a great deal to get accomplished, and a very short optimum window to do it all in; but the plants are growing and growing fast.  In some cases, inches to the day.  The perennials just refill their space (which one has sometimes forgotten the dimensions of), but the trees….  The young American Beech has put on nearly a foot of growth, to all sides and up, this year.  Even mature trees are suddenly bigger.  And of course, they are bigger, all those leaves and all those cells swollen with water.

The color changes as well.  The kitchen had a brief pink cast for awhile as the redbud bloomed, now it is green to the west with the apple tree, and a red/purple/green tint from the east where the Japanese Maple is suddenly flush with new growth.  The back roads are green tunnels and the meadows are tall with grass.