Signs of hope

Sign of Spring

Janet Fisher4 Comments

Daffodils are budding out and it’s still January! Temperature outside my Oregon home hit mid-60s by noon. See the swelling buds? Are these signs of an early spring? I’ve been needing spring. I hope it is.

This row of daffodils always blooms before the others near my house. Every year I look to them for a sign of hope that winter is passing and spring will soon come.

Of course in January we know winter can still throw plenty at us. Daffodils will be okay. They’re tougher than they look. They can take whatever weather they meet. We’ll be okay too, though we need these little signs of hope. Some sooner, some later.

Last year they were so late. Remember my daffodil saga last year when these only started to bud out on a snowy March day? Then the delight when the first bloom finally appeared? I’ve been feeling winter this year. Some years it just seems long whether it is or not. In any case I am definitely ready for an early spring.

I took the closeup this morning, the other late this afternoon. Thank you, little daffodil buds, for a boost of hope today.

Ta-Da!

Janet Fisher4 Comments

First one out!

And so we reach the climax of the glacial saga of the enduring golden daffodils on their reluctance to face a chilly approach to spring. Yet they must. Hope reigns after all.

Below, these curious critters look on, perhaps wondering why in the world I would be down on my knees before a flower, not knowing they have become witnesses to a camera’s capture as well as minor characters in the story.

Now, confident in my flowers, I am ready to charge forward with that other saga, my new book. I’m reaching back to ancient Ireland again where a young woman, an Irish goldsmith, takes a perilous journey in search of a forbidden secret held by the Saltlanders, a people who would one day be called the Celts.