Buds
Dear Readers, Here we are! Not lost, just busy, just tired, just taking a moment to sit with our shared flask of ginger tea, wiping our snotty noses, watching winter and spring swing around in their season-switching dance. Hard frost crackles, soft petals bloom. We had been busy with the old art of hedge laying, busy sorting and tidying the felled trunks, branches, and twigs. There are heaps and stacks and bundles - these boundaries have been untouched for decades - but birds are beginning to gather materials for nests, heralding the end of our hedgework for a while. Our thoughts have turned to The Planting Plan, so we pace around measuring canopy distances before going home to pour over the map, again, again. Two plum trees wait in pots, they have their spots marked. Everything else is a maybe. Down along the iron fence are lines and lines of daffodils, all in bud. Only one has opened, a miniature narcissus staring bravely up at the big world. We are inspired of course, thoug