SNUG AS A BEE IN A BLOOM…

Though it warmed up considerably later on, yesterday morning began decidedly brisk—chilly enough that a light jacket felt good as I ambled around the side yard while Moon-the-Dog made her usual investigatory peregrinations.

On the wild hillside, bloodroot's white blooms remained firmly closed, their leaves clasped tight around the stem, as if in prayer. Even the dense patches of lesser celandine down along the river revealed not a single opened flower.

Yet the narcissus seemed to be just fine, already up and at 'em, strutting their stuff for the newborn day. The various daffodils in shades of white and cream and pale butter seemed luminous in the burgeoning light, while the brilliant yellow jonquils appeared downright jaunty.

It was in one of these jonquils that I spied the bumblebee in the photo, tucked snugly under a protective golden petal…obviously waiting for the rising sun to heat things up a bit before he stirred from his comfy bed.      

NOTHING HAPPENED

Yesterday evening, as my Ladylove and I sat on the deck, watching the sun disappear and the sky go through its wondrous cycle of gold to orange to vermilion to amethyst to indigo, I thought over the weekend and tried to decide what I might write about for this post. Nothing obvious sprang to mind.

On Saturday, I spent most of the day moving cut slabs of Indiana limestone from their storage pile close to the drive to the yard near the front of the cottage, where I'm fiddling with an ongoing project. The idea is to use the materials I have on hand, rather than buying stuff, to construct a sort of wide walkway in front of the side deck and around the riverside corner of the cottage to the front deck.

These chunks of smooth rock—squares, rectangles, triangles, and every other shape you can think of, including lots with broken-off portions—are anywhere from the size of a very large dinner plate to half a desktop, and 2 to 6 inches thick. The ones I can lift I bring down in the wheelbarrow; the ones I can't I coax along with rollers and a crowbar. Fitting them is like working a giant patchwork puzzle. It helps if you have a high tolerance for back pain and an eye for spatial relationships, as hundred-pound blocks aren't the easiest thing to jocky around.

I did take one walk in the afternoon—about a thirty minute break to a low floodplain portion of riverside woods a half mile below the cottage. Lesser celandine have been in bloom locally for a couple of weeks. This stretch is always a riot of bright yellow flowers, and as they're already starting to fade, I wanted to make a quick visit before the show ended.

So that was Saturday.

Sunday after church, my Ladylove and I did nothing other than a few light chores and a lot of lazing around outside in the lovely warm sun. I tended some slow-cooked pork barbecue, read, snoozed, and watched clouds, birds, and the river as it purled along—green, cheerful, as if excited to be dancing southward on a springtime adventure. Moon the dog wallowed in the grass. My Laydylove, who loves the sun—and the brighter-'n-hotter the better—stretched out on the chaise lounge and promptly went to sleep.

Late in the day we had our supper of smoky pulled pork—laced liberally with my tangy-sweet sauce—a big salad, and an after-dinner cappuccino. And that was pretty much the whole of Sunday. So…what to write about?

It was now all but night. The vultures had been settled on their roost for an hour. A couple of robins were trading riffs in the gathering darkness. High in the western sky a jetliner cruised—a wink of silver dragging a vapor tail the color of blood.

"What am I going to write about," I said. "Nothing interesting happened."

"Don't be silly," said Myladylove, "that's interesting…write how nothing happened."

———————

LOVELY INVADER

There is a Flower, the Lesser Celandine, That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain; And, the first moment that the sun may shine, Bright as the sun himself, 'tis out again!

—William Wordsworth, “The Lesser Celandine”

For the past week or so, the corridor woods along the river have been a’gleam with the bright cadmium yellow blooms of lesser celandine. A yellow so intense that shadowy sycamore glades seem to glow. The island across from the cottage appears carpeted, as if thickly spread with mustard. Some folks mistakenly identify lesser celandine as buttercup. While the two plants have similar vibrant yellow blossoms, buttercup tends to grow in more restricted clumps; lesser celandine spreads all over like a low ground cover. Lesser celandine was Wordsworth’s favorite wildflower. He wrote three poems extolling its virtues and requested its image be carved on his tombstone. Unfortunately, when it came time for the old bard to be laid to rest, the stonemason got it wrong, mistakenly depicting instead greater celandine, a member of the poppy family whose leaves and flowers look nothing like the poet’s beloved plant. Lesser celandine, Ranunculus ficaria, prefers damp woodlands and timbered floodplains. The same locations where you’ll find bloodroot, Dutchman’s breeches, spring beauty, rue anemone, and a host of other favorite Buckeye wildflowers. Several states now classify lesser celandine as an “invasive,” because it’s early seasonal emergence and dense growth tendencies can smother out many of our native spring ephemerals—though when I took a walk along the riverside below the cottage earlier this morning, I found trout lily and patches of Virginia bluebell blooming happily amidst the celandine swathes. Personally, as invasive plant threats go, I’ll take lesser celandine over dastardly bush honeysuckle any day. By the middle of May, the vivid yellow blooms and shiny green leaves will all be gone. The riverine woods will dim, turn shadowy. And not until the great seasonal wheel turns full circle once more, and another April appears, will these lovely little invaders brighten our spring.