SPRING!!

i LOVE spring. it is the most fabulous, splendid, exquisite time of the year. This evening I got home and took my wonderful puppy Ampersand for jog up to the top of the cliff and took lots of cute pictures of him, and a few dorky ones of me, to record the fact that I wasn’t sitting on my ass at home watching prerecorded TV shows off my Tivo. That’s what i’m planning on doing any minute now, but I thought first I should share some of my perkiness and post-jog endorphin rush with all of you!! Don’t you just love cheerful people!!!! Not really!!! ok, time to go eat some ice cream so I can calm down.

But anyhoo, spring really is great up here. On my jog it was clear, and warm, and all the bushes have little green leaves popping out to be illuminated by the setting sun (aren’t i poetic). I also saw oregon grape plants flowering, which i haven’t seen since I went to college because I was never here during the right time, and some really pretty yellow daisy like flower that i think might be arnica, although i thought that bloomed later. It was amazing, i was walking along thinking about how it was snow flurrying just the other day, and I look up on the cliff bank above me and there are whole groups of these flowers, happy and cheerful in the sunshine. I’m also really enjoying watching all the plants and flowers come out around our rental house, because it’s kind of like continous surprises. First there were yellow, white, and purple crocuses blooming under the willow tree, and then a clump of some weird fancy large purple kind of crocus/midget tulip/i don’t know what on the bank next to where Mike parks Hilda (his VW Passat. Hilda, by the way, is a name of German origin meaning “battle maiden”) that Ampersand took a bite out of when I was pointing them out to Mike. And the lilac bushes have their leaves budding out, and I can’t wait for the flowers to bloom. I really like lilacs… to the extent that I stole some off of random people’s bushes down in southern Idaho whenever I was driving by and saw some really pretty ones. :S

I think spring in north Idaho is somehow more spectacular than in many other areas, because of the stark contrast between cold, wet, hibernating inhospitable winter and the soft green glow and the smell of growing things that fills the air when spring finally arrives. It’s very rejuvinating and inspiring, and helps to turn me from a grumpy sleepy bear of a person into a happy smiling energetic person. I think next winter I’m going to invest in a sun lamp and a room FULL of plants. Mike will be scared to go in there. Some of my plants tend to be kind of hungry looking.

OK, starting to ramble. Going to go make dinner and watch TV. Yay!