blooming like crazy...

 ... in the leaf mulch all over the yard. There were dozens when they came from south Georgia over thirty years ago, and we planted and planted and planted them everywhere. Now there are probably hundreds of dozens. Popping up in places you forget over the summer, fall and winter that you saw such happy plants growing in the spring. With long slender sword-shaped leaves, that seem to have just magically appeared from the dense mulch of dead leaves under all the deciduous trees. Coming up in unlikely spots like in the center of a big rosemary bush that has flopped and expanded. Or squeezing out from under randomly placed pot plants, where they the bulbs have overwintered for years, determined to grow and flourish

The blooms are very small. Most not as big as the end of your pinkie finger. But one of the earliest things to open up and provide color in the drab brown of fallen leaves. Tiny white bell shaped flowers. All with their heads bowed, facing the dense mulch they force their way through over and over from one spring to the next. The wee little blooms have an opening that looks scalloped, sort of like the edge of a serrated knife. Picture the tip of your little finger, almost to the first knuckle, painted white, with un-even edges. Then add the tiniest little dots of pale green around the edge of the white cup there on the end of your finger.

The name remembered from the giver of the bulbs: Snowdrops. They came from my grandmother's yard in south Georgia. My aunt bought, renovated and moved into the house, then began to reinvigorate the landscaping. She dug up bulbs and shared them. I have given many away over the years as they have grown and multiplied, even so: there are surely twice as many as I started with.  Trying to get them all in the ground, we thought we would never get those big trash bags full of bulbs emptied! When a breeze blows through the places where they are so prolific, looking like tiny bells on the ends of the nodding stalks, you can almost hear (or at least imagine!) the soft, gentle tinkle of the bells chiming.