Early Signs

Out of my window, I see a blue jay hopping around the sharp frame of the sleeping roses. He's bright against the varied browns of our garden, embarrassingly overdressed for what looks like a very somber, very dull party.

Looking more closely, though, you'd notice that the weeds and the grass are greening. The crocus along our front path are crowned with saucers of purple and white. The daffodils are a stubborn green (though I've yet to see the buds on mine), and even a little pink tongue is curling out the ruins of last year's peonies. If you squint, the forsythia bush down the hill is just beginning to twinkle yellow.

And the fifteen trees we planted last week show promise in varying degrees--one of the apples has furry brown buds on her branches, coaxing me to get that deer fence up. As Garrison Keeler reminded us on NPR last week, March is tasting-table season for the deer, and our deer are sweetly obnoxious. Never will I forget the way they waited, biding their time, until all my roses were fully budded until they munched them down systematically and (I imagine) gleefully the night before promised bloom.

In fact, perhaps the laundry can wait just a little longer while the girls and I tromp outdoors and get that fence up. Perhaps we'll even have the pleasure of crossing paths with one of the fat, warm, feathery robins that are filling our garden at the moment. Robins make me so happy.