This week we had a beautiful day where there was break in the rain, the sun came out, and it felt like spring! Oh my goodness, we were all in need of some sunshine! It’s been the rainiest winter I can remember since I’ve lived in Oregon, and not the usual drizzle, but downpour after downpour. It’s been pouring buckets around here and it’s been downright soggy at our place. I can’t complain about the rain though because firstly, I got to go to not one, but two, sunny places in February, Florida and California. (California still counts even though we were inside nearly the whole time.) So I don’t think our friends and neighbors would like to hear me complain about the dark skies and the lack of sun (they’d probably be annoyed with me.) And secondly, the past few summers have been very dry here, and we need the rain to help keep our forests safer. So, I will not complain, but I will most definitely celebrate sunshine!

We’ve been going on walks around our place, like those we started up last winter. This week we were in search of forest flowers, wood violets and trillium. The wood violets are everywhere this year, and the trillium are almost finished blooming already, so I wanted to capture them before they were gone. They are so fleeting, and when I take pictures I feel like I can enjoy them longer. We were admiring the spring flowers, but we were also looking for some wild greens to add to our salads, inspired by our recent foraging walk. The sweet little yellow wood violets would have been beautiful in a salad, but they never make it that far. B harvested miner’s lettuce for our salad, though, and with the watercress and chives from our garden, it made a fresh addition to our salad that night. I’m not a fan of miner’s lettuce, it’s so bitter, but I know throwing a little in our salad will give us some benefits without noticing the taste too much. (And I know bitter means it’s good for you. I’m told that bitters are good to eat in the spring.)

A walk outside, some sunshine, forest flowers in bloom, and some wild greens for our salad… all things that renewed our spirits that day.