Spring is Back!

After one monster of a winter, spring has finally returned. The 4-foot snow drifts are melting, melting. And in their absence are bulbs already pushing up out of the ground. Snowdrops are blooming right now in our shade garden. And the daffodils are 5 inches tall, budded and ready to pop. A couple warm days of sun and our yard is going to be ablaze in sunny blooms. A big sigh of relief!

I've been thinking about daffodils a lot. Wishing for them. And writing about them too. Read about the 10 Top Daffodils for the Midwest in Midwest Living magazine. And although you can't plant bulbs right now, you can buy little pots of 'Tete-a-Tete' and other small narcissus in garden centers. There's nothing more cheering!

Springtime in The Netherlands

I just got back home from a trip to The Netherlands where I saw millions of blooming bulbs: tulips, narcissus, muscari and hyacinths. The fields of flowers in and around Lisse are beautiful. And surreal. After living in Iowa much of my life, row crops are a familiar sight--long straight rows of green corn and soybeans. But sections of red, yellow and pink flowers aren't. Big blocks of color like a Mondrian painting.

Canals rim the bulb fields. In fact there's water nearly everywhere, but it stays well-behaved in canals because the Dutch are masters of water management.

The farm pastures were carpeted with grass and Texel sheep, Holstein cows and Friesian horses (all Dutch breeds) grazed happily. Long-legged European hares danced in the fields and white trumpeter swans nested along the canals. The landscape there is just startling beautiful.

And when I arrived home after 10 days abroad, Spring had arrived at our farm too. The narcissus were up and waving, the crab apples trees held tiny fists of petals that were ready to burst open and the grass was the same emerald green as in the Dutch farm fields.