Spring fever – and the green is barely beginning in my patch of Vermont. Southernly, along the Connecticut River, we find greening grass in Lebanon, the hillsides washed with fattening buds. Perhaps especially because I am (finally! finally!) beginning to heal, my body aches to rake and tend, to bend down and finger budding flowers. The photo above is a tease. We’re close, but my daffies aren’t yet unfolded.
Too, we are a ways from marsh marigold, that swamp flower with profuse greenery and gold blossoms, but here’s one of my favorite David Budbill poems, so good it’s worth reading over and over…
The First Green of Spring
Our walking in the swamp picking cowslip, marsh marigold,
this sweet first green of spring. Now sautéed in a pan melting
to a deeper green than ever they were alive, this green, this life,harbinger of things to come. Now we sit at the table munching
on this message from the dawn which says we and the world
are alive again today, and this is the world’s birthday. Andeven though we know we are growing old, we are dying, we
will never be young again, we also know we’re still right here
now, today, and, my oh my! don’t these greens taste good.
Stony Soil Vermont 
I hope you can rake and tend very soon.
My daughter started yesterday with the rake!
Thanks for sharing spring through a beautiful daffodil. The warmth came through the image. 😊
🌞
Love the poem! My daffs on the west side of my house opened yesterday, the back yard will open soon, as yours will! When we lived in the mountains of Peru (VT) our spring was really late, but I’d drive the 20 minutes to Manchester and enjoy their spring flowers, then mine in turn. That’s a long season!
That’s such a Vermont story — driving to a nearby town to savor an earlier spring. I used to do that with Johnson….. happy to hear about your blooming flowers.
Makes me want to forage and cook up something—anything—green!
Wild ramps can’t be that far off…
Life, again and again! YAY!! 🩷
💕
Lovely. Though I am not a gardener, my own Spring fever usually starts in February. 🙂
In my New England experience, cabin fever has no gardening prerequisite, sadly… 😁