Mostly it’s been rainy here, very rainy. But we’ve had a couple of days the last few weeks where the sun has shone and it’s been so warm out. Before Bracken and I left to visit family in Florida, there wasn’t much color to be seen around the garden, but when we returned color started popping up everywhere. The daffodils started blooming and we spotted dandelions and tiny white daisies in the grass. The flowering plum tree out front was covered in pink blossoms and Bracken spotted the first trilliums in the woods.

When we walk out our door and see sunny daffodils, pink blossoms against a blue sky, and brilliant white trilliums in bloom, it feels like spring to me. And on those warm days with our cheeks glowing with sun, it truly does feel like spring is here. (Living in Iowa for much of my life, I still feel a tad bit surprised when I look out at the garden and then at the calendar, telling myself: Yes there really are flowers blooming in February. Western Oregon has such a different climate.) The cold rainy days make those warm ones feel so far away, and make it feel very much like the middle of winter in the Pacific Northwest, but the flowers say otherwise.

The chives Jeff transplanted are growing fast (I’m the crazy chive lady that keeps wanting to plant more) and we’re all happy to see the buds (and all the new growth) on the little apple trees we planted the spring before last. Jeff spotted the first sign of bleeding hearts popping up, while he was weeding the blueberries. I got the grapes all pruned. I thought I probably picked a bad time to prune them, but then looked it up and read that pruning should be done when the vines are dormant in late winter or early spring. Go figure, I got the timing right. (Jeff’s the one with the green thumb, I just guess at everything.)

Bracken has been saving all the daffodils that have fallen over in the rain. He insisted that he didn’t want one vase, but needed a whole bunch. I didn’t know what he was up to until he put vases everywhere throughout the house to surprise us. I tend to fill one vase with flowers only to be enjoyed in a single spot, but I loved the way he spread the cheer all through the entire house. On those rainy days that followed, those flowers surely did brighten up all the spaces where he put them.

See those tiny lilac buds? We may get lilacs for the first time on a plant Jeff transplanted (to a sunnier location) a few years ago. I’m anticipating the smell already. (I stop to smell the trilliums every single time we pass them because I know we won’t be able to enjoy their scent much longer.) We’ve been seeing bumblebees visit the little pink huckleberry flowers, even on rainy days. Oh, and we spotted the lizard for the first time this year. We’ve seen him the last few years in the warmest spot in the garden and were surprised to see him out there already so early in the season, sunning himself on a clear day.

Bracken picked out those succulents and they are going to be planted along his garden bed. One of them (his favorite) looks like it has spiderwebs on it, and our friend called it a spider plant. With the rain, there aren’t all that many pink blossoms left on the flowering plum tree out front since I took these pictures and I’m not sure how much longer the daffodils will last. Not a single crocus popped up in the yard this year and we’re all missing them, we really must plant some for next year. Bracken wants to plant tulips also. Our list of things to plant in the garden always exceeds the space we have to grow it in, but we always manage to tuck a few more plants in. So, there’s my random garden ramblings for the day.

Jeff and Bracken put watercress on our salad tonight and the taste of fresh, zesty greens was a taste of spring indeed!