gray day...

...out there, when I was hoping for sunshine. I was going to do some trash pick up in the yard, but it's windy, overcast and not appealing at all. Making me think it looks much more like a day for a nap instead of filling the wheelbarrow with sticks and limbs to roll up to the street. The never-ending task that accompanies living in a house out in the woods, on a big lot, with lots of trees that constantly (like small children?) need picking up after.

Looking at those little happy hyacinths in the flower bed, and hope that some of those dozens of daffodils rescued from the dumpster will want to bloom this spring. Down the hill behind the house, and out front, towards the street on our wooded lot, maybe two hundred bulbs planted over the years. Most were 'bloomed out', started in a greenhouse someplace  (Canada?), to be shipped to retailers for gift-giving holiday: Valentines', Easter or Mother's Day. They are beautiful for several days, glorious when they are showing off, but quickly go down hill, and fade into, literally: nothing. 

The vast majority of weary plants get tossed in the trash, but I have brought pots home over the years, (mostly bulbs, spring bloomers and a few calla lilies) and installed into the leaf mulch around the house. Out in the yard under the trees, where they could grow roots in the rich soil, undisturbed. My dad was of the opinion that things that had been made to bloom 'un-naturally', out of season, would never perform satisfactorily when planted out in the world. They would never recover, to the point of rejuvenating the energy they had used in the greenhouse to revert and bloom at the proper time/season when growing in a natural environment. I won't disagree, as there are paper whites  from years ago, that though planted under the deciduous trees, have not done much blooming.

Several hours later, after puttering in the kitchen, putting on a pot of soup to simmer, folding dozens of towels from church, and returning here: end of debate about yard work vs nap, when I looked out the window and see it is beginning to drizzle.  I could get in the car and drive myself someplace to walk for an hour, but I could also just go lay down on the couch and see what happens after that....