Spring, with all its glorious blooms and colors is still a marvel after last winter. The blooming pink dogwood has transitioned to green leaves, with the breeze sending petals to the ground in spring’s version of snowfall.The red horse chestnut has taken its place as the big pink blooming tree on the corner, the last in our series of three. While not quite as large yet as the first two pink blooming trees on our corner, it is getting there. After all, it is several decades younger than its predecessors. I love that the front right corner of our yard has a series of big, pink trees whose blooms stretch out over a month of spring, from the first whisper of it until the high glory of it all.This tree might just have the showiest blooms of all.

The front shade bed is in full bloom. I adore the lushness of it, even while knowing it badly needs to be thinned. Two types of wild geraniums, may apples, trillium and most fragrant of all, lily of the valley are all blooming. The smell is amazing and wafts inside when the windows are open. Sitting on the front porch is divine. I’m pretty sure heaven smells like lily of the valley. It’s just the most delicate, intoxicating scent.

I drove out to my friend Cynthia’s yesterday to get some of the tomato and pepper plants she starts for my vegetable garden. It was a gorgeously summery like spring day, exactly the sort of day to take a drive out to the country. I had never been out to her home before and as I pulled up in the driveway, I fell in love. She has an absolute picturesque, tucked away county house – the kind that makes you want to move out to the country. It’s a newer house – still an ongoing project – but it looks like it has always been there. You know the sort. Her front yard resembles a small meadow. The woods around it all separate her property from all the new development around her. It really is an oasis.  I am sort of kicking myself for not bringing my camera, but sometimes you just want to capture those things in your mind, you know?

I came home to find the twin babies from across the street (not to be confused with the twin babies from down Rose Hill who most certainly are no longer babies, but will probably always be referred to, at least by me, as the twin babies) playing in the sandbox with their beloved Edie. Later, as we sat in the front yard enjoying the evening light on everything blooming, Martha and her dog popped by. I accompanied her down the block for a bit, catching up before heading for home to discover Virginia had paused to say hello on her walk around the block with her dogs. After what feels like years of waiting, summer, with its delicious unscheduled lack of structure and warm weather is just around the corner. In one sense, it feels as is it’s snuck up on us – after the winter that wouldn’t relent, spring has timidly taken its sweet time warming up. Yesterday, with that golden spring sunlight, glorious blooming everything, those various shades of light spring green that seem hard to capture and warm enough temperatures that wearing flip flops were finally not rushing the season, well, it would appear summer is arriving right on schedule.