This beautiful amaryllis has given me great joy. It was given to me for my birthday back in December by my neighbor, Aileen. It is now on its third and final flowering stalk. It saved its best show for last: six huge blossoms! It graces my kitchen window and drinks in the southerly sun. Outside my window the no-longer-winter-not-quite-spring landscape is drab and colorless. When I took it outside on my deck yesterday to snap these photos, it injected my brown outside world with a jolt of color.

This is the first amaryllis that I’ve ever had, but it certainly won’t be my last. Next year I vow to pot at least two different varieties. So lovely. It asked nothing of me except for sun and water and gave everything it had back.

Spring is coming, I know. There is a change in the air. It smells different; feels different on my skin. I saw my first robin this past weekend, and the little fox sparrow that scratches around like a tiny chicken has shown up at my feeder for the first time this year. 

Soon our trees will leaf out, and the world outside my window will be a sea of green. I long to open my windows wide and let the beautiful song of the wood thrush fill this house once again.

Poking around in my flower beds the other day I came across proof that the earth is starting to stir again. More gifts that keep giving. Soon ... soon, spring will come.

The sun is out so strongly this morning. The shadows it’s casting are so intense, so black, you would swear someone had been spray painting on my lawn and driveway. A week ago it was still mostly covered with snow. We had such drenching rain yesterday along with warmer temperatures that it all washed away.

I think Winter is slowly losing whatever grip it had. It never did have a very firm hold this year, always vacillating back and forth. Snow. Rain. Snow. Rain. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. If it’s not going to really be winter it might as well be spring. This side of winter is always so drab and dull. Normally I am a winter person but I find myself longing for sweet bird song (which has already begun), lush green grass, and the warm sun on my face.

We turn our clocks forward this weekend, so maybe that will put a jump start on the new season. I’m ready. I am tired of standing in the shadow of winter. Bring it on!

While taking a walk in the woods the other day with Sailor this rock caught my eye. To me it looked like the leaves had decoupaged themselves around it.

Today is February 29th. Happy Leap Day! Here is what the NY Times had to say in their Sky Watch section:

Leap Day is an artifact that dates back to 46 B.C. when Julius Caesar took the advice of Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer, who knew that the solar year was about 365.25 days in length. So to account for that residual quarter of a day, leap day was added to the calendar every four years.

Unfortunately, the new Julian calendar was 11 minutes and 4 seconds longer than the actual solar year. By 1582 the calendar had fallen out of step with the solar year by 10 days. It was then that Pope Gregory XIII, with the advice of his own astronomer, Clavius, produced the Gregorian calendar. Ten days were omitted after Oct 4, 1582, making the next day Oct. 15. Then, to closely match the length of the solar year, leap years were skipped in century years. The exceptions were those equally divisible by 400. That is why 2000 was a leap year but 1900 was not.

Whew! Do we really know what day it is ... or not?