The Light is Growing Stronger Every Day

It is almost light out when we are awakened in the morning, and we have more than an hour of daylight left when I get home after work. This is really the best time of the year for me - all potential, no disappointments yet. It has become impossible to document all of the new growth, all of the things beginning to grow in the yard as there are so many. A walk around this evening revealed more tulips, primroses, the Lime Ricky Heuchera looking as though it has been growing under the snow all winter, bachelor's buttons, swelling buds on the magnolia, sprouts of daylilies under the dried dead leaves from last year, and numerous other signs.

The ice went out of the pond on Sunday, just a day after the neighbor's cleared and we thought ours would be another week at least. As the water clears, it appears that the water lily has survived yet another winter. The water is filled with dead leaves and will no doubt smell bad in no time. We will need to drain and clean the pond, and this year do a number of repairs to the stone edge which have begun to fall and tip in. We are thinking about expanding the pond, maybe just digging a new one. But I still have an attachment to this one, and find it hard to consider abandoning it. That, and the fact that the goldfish downstairs really need to get out of the aquarium and into nice oxygenated water outside.

Most of the snow piles have gone. I told Bill this weekend that I was betting that the pile in the front yard would last until the first of May. That may have been overly pessimistic, but it is still at least 3 feet high and 6 or 7 feet in diameter and it will take some pretty warm days to melt it. We are expecting warmer days for the next week or so, so maybe...

I brushed the old dead foliage from the chives out in the garden today and cut some to put on the cottage cheese I had for dinner. A good feeling to begin using the outside herbs again. The Tarragon is starting to come up, the three different types of thyme are all still alive, and the sage is beginning to sprout. No mint sprouts yet, but no worries there. Still too early for the seedlings of dill and cilantro, and way too soon to put basil out. But summer will come.