Wonderful I enjoyed your writing so much. Tom C.




"madgarder" wrote in message
m...
I woke up Wednesday morning on my day off to discover that the fairies had
pulled an all nighter and had opened up all the boxes of spring. The last
week we've had extremely nice weather and the rains have even held off
most days with just some spits of tempting spring showers on odd days.
During my drive to work I travel my favorite winding country road, and
everywhere I've been seeing early sign of spring time bursting at the
seams.

There is a tulip tree in the corner of a lot where there is a double wide
modular just under the overpass of the interstate just down the road that
is
groaning with deep blush pink/burgandy and peach "tulips" all over the
small
tree, and I almost careen off the road looking at it as I pass......

Everywhere the white trees in oddball places catch your eye along roads,
up
by the overpass by the interstate above the road I turn to go to work just
off Wine has two saplings, and in the woods you see white thru the dark
trunks of trees not quite ready. I racked my brain for a few days and then
had to slap myself when I realized it wasn't wild pears, but BLACK CHERRY
TREES!! oy vey..........

The willow's that I spoke of a bit earlier has replaced the dangling limbs
of small green pearls with impressive fresh green leaves, and all the
maples are getting that bulky deep red look. But what really told me that
spring was threatening to burst out was everywhere I looked were old
ladies
and tender young maidens decked out in too much blush. The redbuds. The
older, more established ones, and the young saplings that are trying to
keep
up with their matrons in bud. This is the time of year that I cajole
myself
for not digging up young saplings for my own woods.......they are numbered
in the hundred, maybe even thousands.........

Squire and I drove into Knoxville yesterday and it's been warmer there
than
here,
because the DOGWOODS are bulking up and showing that green tender tipped
look. And their redbuds are already fluffed out and showing their
shocking
pinks.

I'm not jealous because in time our own redbuds will show their colors.
Because of this, I was longing for a redbud of my own in our woods, and
was
looking around the pallets at work at the 5 gallon blooming trees and came
across something incredible.......... a Forest Pansey redbud. The
emerging
teensy leaves that were along the slightly crooked stems were deep
burgandy,
but the description and picture of the tree on the information card was
what
floored me, and made up my mind. The heart shaped leaves are absolutely
one
reason anyway, and the pink blooms that will come out on bare branches
first. But the heart shaped leaves are reddish purple and turn brownish
red!!

Buying a pink dogwood is one thing........but to buy a Forest Pansy Redbud
that is patented and will someday attain a height of 30 feet is a
commitment
in more ways than one. I got one, and returned to work today and got Mary
Emma one for her yard in west Knoxville which I will take to her tomorrow.

As I'm driving up my dead end road, the wild turkeys are up on the flat
top
of the road near Miz Mary's house clustered around the large boulders
she's
using as bowls filled with cracked corn and they're eating and two Tom's
are
all puffed out and doing a mating dance. Not knowing they were there when
I
drove up, I startled them and they waddled off in lunatic fright, some
hens
more daring and unafraid than others, standing their ground while they
gorged a last moment on the corn she'd laid out for them. The Tom kept
his
tail plumed out, and a few of the more skittish hens took flight, their
wingspan so large, I sat quietly and watched as they glided to the wooded
edges of the pasture just below Miz Mary's hilltop into the Hammer's
woods.

I sat there for a moment, my music turned down when I first came upon the
turkeys in hopes to not do what I had just done, and the sounds of a
multitude of birds greeted my ears. The melodious trill of the Eastern
Bluebird cuts thru all the songs, and I hunkered down in my truck seat and
listened for a moment......Jays, crows, robins, an odd mockingbird,
Cardinals, a little bird I can't identify by his song that sounds like
"purdy purdy purdy purdy", the far off sound of a hawk's warning
sound.....it's almost audial overload, but I have learned to listen better
since living here where my music is sometimes not necessary and insultive,
as nature has more than enough music for me to listen to.

I snapped out of my wandering thru the bird songs, and my eyes focased on
Miz Mary's sugar maple tree. Good grief.................the hazy, young
green leaves are emerging almost as I sit there gazing at them. The one
in
the pasture is downright fat with them, the leaves now defining what I
would
say is an absolute perfect maple, one that has been left alone by man's
hands, and only sculpted by Mom's Nature hand with harsh lightening
strikes
and weather prunings. It is a young maple tree by tree standards,
probably
about 75 or so, it had risen up in the north pastures from a blown seed
from
Miz Mary's tree that sits atop the ridge that borders our driveway, and
over
her lifetime and possibly longer, it grew into perfection. The limbs are
just low enough on it that any child with a mind to climb up into her
boughs
can do so with relative ease. If it were my tree, I'd hang bird feeders
on
her generous lower branches for her bird visitors to come perch and
knosch.

This tree gives me pleasure in just it's presence of being there. And I
enjoy her all four seasons of the passing year.

As I shift the truck back into drive to continue my arrival home, I look
at
the signs all around me of the early arrival of spring. Or maybe I should
say the burgeoning arrival of spring. Like some sassy, older Auntie who
insists on everyone noticing her entrance, the additional help me and my
fairies have provided for the entrance is highly noticable. I see by my
gate that I need to clip the Zebra grasses now or will suffer to injure
the
new emerging grasses if I tarry longer in this chore. It will require me
to
sit quietly and cut each stem and make quite a pile of the brown stems,
which I usually just set a match to, but I think this year I will put them
in the lower compost space and allow them to decompose as long as they
need.

My forsythia has almost finished it's blooming, and the sharpness of the
green in the emerging leaves is more evident than two days ago. It's like
fast forward. I was never able to decide on which one to remove, and
instead, I brutally prune the backsides of both of them opening up space
between them and the fig box.

As I drive to the first doorway of my side yard, I see there are tiny
signs
of leaves along the tan stems of the trumpet vine which is directly across
from the second forsythia bush. Just past them, your eye is captured by
mine and the fairies efforts of planting spring ephemerals, the early
bulbs.
My love of all of them is boundless. You see from the driveway my love
for
the narcissus is great, but apparently not complete. I must have them
all.................but already I am finding some more fragrant and on the
top of my "smell" list.

Now fast forward to Saturday for a moment. Out weather god like person who
never fails, has warned us about a "Dogwood winter" and I've been talking
to
customers at work who are transplants from Florida (the ones from Iowa and
Chicago and Michigan actually believe me..........) the days before when
the temperatures are hovering in the low 70's, and I tell them Mom's
Nature
has a wicked sense of humor this time of year (why do you think we REALLY
call it April Fools.............) and they shake their heads at me,
because
NOW the dogwoods are unfolding, the redbuds are plumped out looking like
soft lavender cloaked trees everywhere you look, the wild dogwoods are
more
cautious in the woods, I don't see anything but slight green on the ends
of
their stems as I drive around, but yesterday when I went to deliver Mary
Emma her Forest Pansy redbud, Knoxville was in even further fast forward
than here up on the ridge........

I had a feeling yesterday during the cold rains I should have picked all
the
flowers............well it's Sunday morning. There is a winter wonderland
outside, with everything covered in three inches of beautiful snow
highlighting every twig, stem, branch, fence opening, and bending every
flower, every branch with leaves (which is every bush around here) to the
ground with the weight of it. I woke up to Squire saying "GOOD GRIEF,
IT'S
SNOWING OUTSIDE...............HOLY CRAP, THERE"S OVER THREE INCHES OF SNOW
ON EVERYTHING, AND IT'S STILL SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All yer beautiful
flowers are covered. I woulda never believed it........there's over three
inches of snow out there and it's still coming down!!" And I'm lying in
the
warm water bed listening to his incredulity in his voice, this child of
Michigan who has suffered and lived in Tennessee now with me for over two
decades of his life (five years in Denver were more erratic and strange
with
weather and their zone 5 during the early years together, and he was the
one
comforting me with the strange weather shifts out there) and as I lie
there,
I calmly tell him "yes dear, I know....................it's Dogwood
Winter,
I told you we were gonna have Dogwood winter, but you musta not taken me
serious........" and he's in the livingroom grumbling out loud that
there's
SNOW on his satellite dish he can't turn on MSNBC to see updates, and he's
gonna hafta go get the broom to sweep the snow offa the dish, and he
obviously has turned and approached the bedroom because I hear his voice
getting closer and he says "honey, (it's risen in a few notes so it's a
sorta stressed voice) I don't THINK YOU UNDERSTAND, THERE'S THREE INCHES
OF
SNOW ON ALL THE FLOWERS AND EVERYTHING and it's still coming down!!!!!!!
You oughta get yer camera and take some pictures of this!!!" So I drag my
tired old abused body (Lowes is hard friends, on that concrete for 8
hours,
so days off are a blessing now, but I love it......talk to me in high
summer..................) up outa the warm waterbed, (this is the second
day
I have been gotten up on a day off when I desperately wanted to sleep in)
and after putting on my glasses and finding my shoes, I go get the
frelling
camera, and walking outside, my little head and braid quickly get covered
in
snow, as I take pictures of the winter wonderland outside.

I will finish my talk with you of the flowers later. I'm going back to
bed
now that I'm back inside and cold..........................the things one
does for their spouces...................

madgardener not surprised in the least that Mom's Nature has decided to
mess
with us on this perfect spring up on the ridge, back in a snow encased and
covered fairy holler, overlooking a shouded in snow clouds English
Mountain
in Eastern Tennessee zone 6b Sunset zone 36