Whoa! Say, what grows there? On a cherry log, waving fronds of some mysterious fungus grow, frosty on one side, leathery on the other. With their curled fingers they entice one to listen to their story. If such fronds could talk, what would they say?

A first potato has sprouted, poked its first leaves out of the ground. I like how potato sprouts are so furry. If I clipped the down of potato sprouts, could I a pillow make? I tried researching the fuzz or down on baby potato leaves, but couldn’t find anything about them. They evidently are not a thing yet.

A thing in my book are the delicate sprouts of ruby streaks, a mustard green. They self seed easily, and this bed came up on its own from last summer’s flowers. The ones I thin out make a fiery snack.

Winter is but a memory now with tulips pushing their flower buds high, cherries in bloom, indian plums dangling their slender white flowers, plums spreading their pink petals wide for the bees, bleeding hearts carpeting the forest floor with green lace, and ferns waking up, their heads bending slowly upwards.

The bleeding hearts which cover much of the forest floor here are the pink flowered Lamprocapnos spectabilis, a flower native to Siberia, northern China, Korea, and Japan. It is the only species in the genus Lamprocapnos. It is so well spread here that you’d think it had always been here.

The Indian Plum, Oemleria cerasiformis is a native plant here, growing from Santa Barbara in California, up the Pacific coast of America into British Columbia. It too is a sole species in its genus, Oemleria. Fifty-seven genera of plants have 500 or more species, with Astragalus (milk-vetches) having 3,270 species.

Just one warm day is all the cherry blossoms are asking to spread their petals. It is spring. The sun has moved into the northern hemisphere. Is one warm day too much to ask for? But maybe we have it all wrong with temperature charts over days and weeks to predict when the cherries will bloom. Maybe what we need is to put microphones among the cherry blossom buds and listen for the buzz of the bumblebees. Could it be that cherry blossoms don’t open until they hear at least three bumblebees buzzing about? After all, what’s the point of spreading your petals if the bumblebees aren’t there to tickle them?

It’s warm enough for the rhubarb, forsythia, and daffodils. Maybe the bumblebees wait to dig themselves out of their burrows until there is a sniff of daffodil in the air. Maybe the micro-tremors rhubarb stalks spread through the ground as they push their way out trigger the daffodils to bloom, the scent wafting off the daffodil blossoms trigger the bumblebees to stir, the bumblebees buzzing through the cherry blossom buds trigger them to open, the cherry blossoms trigger all sorts of happiness. Just saying. The world is more Alice in Wonderland than we imagine. We’re just not paying attention.

In the cool woods, the first trillium of the season is about to unfurl. We spotted it while showing a longtime dear friend through the woods this morning. Most of the trilliums were just points of green sticking out of the forest floor. Not this one. This morning, the bud was still tightly curled. This afternoon it has already started to unfurl.

The snow geese are still here, making the fields as white as the snow covered mountains. It’s only a matter of weeks before they take off for the far north. As they finish their winter sojourn here, are they dreaming of feasting on swarms of mosquitos in the tundra? Are they arguing whether to take the scenic route or the quickest route? Are the couples quarreling over how many chicks to raise?

The lilac buds are swelling. The crocus are pushing out of the ground. At the faintest sign of light, birdsong fills the air.

The sweet daphne, one of my favorite flowers, is in bloom. You can get drunk just by smelling them. It takes just one small sprig with a blossom to fill your whole house with their perfume. A native of southern China, here it is thousands of miles from its homeland, scenting the early spring air.

The cherry buds are puffing out, their pink perhaps shame at taking so long to bloom this year? Grain the birds didn’t eat has sprouted in the bird feeder. Grain seeds are complex structures. They are packets of nutrients with built in digestive systems to turn the stored starches into sugars for the young sprouts. A host of enzymes break down the starches into sugars to feed the new shoots. When grains like wheat and rye are ground into flour, these enzymes are still there, so when you add water to flour and let it sit, the water activates the enzymes and they go to work breaking down the starches into complex sugars, which is why, you get the most delicious breads if you first just mix the flour with water and let it rest for hours and hours.