No pictures today, just words.

Dear bloomers,

What a lovely thing warm temperatures and sunshine are after a winter of rain, coldness, and drear. This weekend the sun came out a little and it was warm. I basked on the slab in my jogging clothes for about an hour on Saturday. It was just lovely. There is nothing quite like the warming sensation of the sun radiating down on your legs and face. Our house’s radiant heating system comes close, but it’s just not the same. When you’re outside you sit and hold your breath hoping that the wind won’t blow and disturb the little bubble of warm you’re encapsulated in. While I was enjoying the warm sun, a little song sparrow trusted my lethargy and landed on the birdfeeder an arm’s length away. I know that they’re really just feathered little mice, but they sure are cute! We’ll see how cute they are when I see them eating my new veggies. Grrr.

So. On the flower front.

This weekend I planted more things. I’m out of control. Now we have boxes with chives, butter lettuce, broccoli and radishes. Seriously, it’s going to be salad heaven here if any of this ever takes root (haha). The arugulas are doing well, my newest line of nasturtiums has sprouted, and the peas are just shooting up! I will need to get them better sticks to climb on soon. I stuck some simple skewers in the ground with hope that they’d at least cling on to those temporarily, but they will need something more soon.

The sunflowers that I started inside are looking amazing, too. They have at least four or five inches on them already. I’m impressed. I’ll need a buoy them up with something soon, too. They’re getting a hair too tall for their current supports. Their crazy window-driven tropism doesn’t really help either. I’d take them outside already, but they’re still succulent enough looking that I don’t want something to have them for a snack.

I do have one unfortunate thing to report today… it looks like one of the neighborhood kids thought it would be fun to whack the heck out of one of our trees. Unfortunately, it’s on the other side of the sidewalk, so it’s difficult to protect (unlike the one in our yard). I saw it this morning, and I hope it doesn’t suffer any permanent damage or catch a tree disease as a result of this woeful aggression. The reminder that other people don’t share my same degree of respect and reverence for trees and/or the natural world somehow never ceases to surprise me. Of course, when I was a kid I whacked on trees with sharp metal things, too. I never thought twice about it, either. It must be something you grow out of. If you were somehow able to tabulate it, I wonder just how much damage kids do to things in the world, not knowing about the permanence or nature of their actions?