A NEW SEASON BEGINS

With the advent of the first real, gen-u-wine Spring we've had in ages, I've been throwing caution and my bad knee and hip to the wind and burying myself in the warming soil of my gardens. It's not a good day if I don't come in with at least some dirt under half of what passes for my fingernails and a smudged cheek or nose, clothes so dirty that I can't even put them with the other dirty clothes in the laundry and the iniability to lift my right leg to climb the garage stairs into the house. But even pain can give way to the satisfaction felt from having cleaned and prepped a new spring bed already sporting new life without any help from me.

Life can be good and even better when I'm allowed to while away a few hours on most days revelling in the solitude and respite of my garden. Marveling at the return of a late-entry perennial I put in the previous November when I was sure there weren't enough warm days and slightly warmish nights to help it establish roots and reward me in spring. Like this Celandine Wood Poppy, with it's bright yellow coins and oak leaves that was one of the first to greet me this year.

Seems each new season is begun with me forgetting just how very much it all means to me. It isn't just a new plant here and there, a load of mulch, or a steaming pile of black-gold compost awaiting. It's that. All of that. But, so much more. It's like a gigantic, impossible-to-swallow-pill that every therapist and analyst wishes they had at their disposal. It's my yearly fix and no matter what the side effects, (i.e. aches and god-awful pains sometimes) I still keep coming back for more. An incurable garden junkie I guess. With a resulting high of more pluses than minunses; more rewards than disadvantages. And always worth it.