Redbud Fever

 

The first colors are beginning to appear.  Prairie grasses and weeds alike are creeping across the fields and roads.  Fresh, bright green.  Spring green.  Full of hope and promise and cheer.  Bold weeds line the roads boasting an occasional elfin white, yellow and pink bloom.  

Shrubs burst with tiny new leaves damp from dew and ample spring rain.  The trees along the many winding creeks limbs fill with new branch and leaf buds.  The smell of muddy earth and decaying leaves perfume the air.  ee cummings exclaims "mudluscious."

However, when we're exceptionally lucky, we see the first bitty pink buds of the eastern redbud, often called the harbingers of spring.  These cheerful plants are either referred to as small trees or large shrubs.  I see them as diminutive fine-limbed trees.  Through the cold, leafless, dreary winter, the hills slump in monochromy.  Snow and ice drape us in bleak muddiness.  

Yet, when the days begin to lengthen, the sun in no rush to leave.  Bright green grasses warily peek up from the sodden earth.  Weeds begin to unfurl their leaves and tendrils.  In thickets of bare trees, tiny pink buds reach out from delicate branches.  Soon the redbuds glow faint pink.  Lovely!  Behind this tree and that or crouched at the edge of the road, pink clouds herald spring.

Out by the barn, a  patch of daffodils sprang up, surrounded by a halo of grape hyacinth.  The bold yellow brightened the damp path from house to barn.  More daffodils sprouted near the front door between two oaks.  They greeted us each morning as we passed.  More hyacinth in the circle drive, a shadow of pretty purple.

Even the weeds in the pasture were ready to celebrate.  The field glowed purple, abuzz with so many busy bees, butterflies and moths.

Spring.