Tip of the hat to a late spring...

And my old prairie Hedge Society from a late spring years ago:

I am a lifelong Canadian and still I do not learn. Around mid-February I begin to notice the band of light on the horizon at 7:15 in the morning. Soon eight hours of winter light will turn into eight and a half hours and then nine and then ten hours of glorious daylight. The other night, I noticed the sky was actually a beautiful deepening teal blue at 7 pm rather than a navy black. I wear a t-shirt instead of a sweater inside the house as a defiant gesture to the retreating winter.

March. The very name evokes thoughts of green grass and warming breezes. When will the tulips I planted in September begin to show? When can I put the snow shovel away? But March in Canada loves to fool you. A few years ago, we received 40 cm of snow in mid-March. The temperatures are still below zero one day before Spring arrives. The t-shirt takes its place back on the shelf and I return to checking weather reports in between trying to unfreeze the front gate and wrapping myself in blankets while sitting at the computer.

My mom is visiting and we take a quick trip to the gardening store. It is quiet and empty with just a few hopeful souls breathing in the pictures on the seed packages. The vivid reds of early girl tomatoes, the purples of lobelia, the oranges of tiger lilies and pastels of sweet peas swirl before us like an impressionist painting. When I drive home, heater on high, mittens gripping the frozen steering wheel, I turn down a back alley near the house. We crack open the frosted windows ever so slightly so we can hear the tiny birds that are hiding in the skeletons of lilac bushes. They sing and sing wearing down the fraying ends of winter, coaxing the warmth of spring to appear.