Oysterville Daffodils

     The daffodils are beginning to peek out in Oysterville!  If we get just a few good days of sun, masses of yellow (from the 6,000 bulbs that Bradley has planted the last two autumns) will burst forth in all their glory.  I think the plan is that they will bloom in stages so that we will have daffodils to cheer us for several months to come!
     And, alongside the ditches, the pussy willows are beginning to fur out.  Properly known as ‘catkins,’ it is the male of the species that are covered with a fine grayish fur before they come into full flower.  They are one of the earliest harbingers of spring and often seem to be gone before I have a chance to pick any.  Maybe this year…
     The frogs are beginning to tune up, as well.  Soon, we will be seeing them cross Sandridge Road from west to east — leaving their winter hibernating grounds in favor of the bogs and marshes they prefer for their spring courting rituals.  At least, I think that’s the reason for their spring migration; they reverse directions in the fall.
     It all makes me itch to get out in the garden and get to digging, but I am heeding the advice of the experts who say “not yet.”  “We are still likely to get some hard frosts,” they say.  “Be patient.”
     Patience is not my middle name.  But it is one of those P words I’ve chosen to guide me through 2011 in lieu of New Year’s Resolutions.  So, I will bide my time yet awhile.  It should be a long time before the last of those 6,000 daffodils appear.  Then it should be about the right time to begin my garden.  A butterfly garden this year, I think.