So as you may know from reading my dear fiend Melissa's blog (which I am sure you do, with the fine taste and discernment that you have) that we are both wallowing around in a deep and exquisite Jane Eyre obsession.
You may recall that I harbored a fine passion for the BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre that was aired in the US on PBS in early 2007. Well, I showed that version to Melissa, and it grabbed her by the throat and shook her, hard, just like it did me a few years back.
So I have happily joined her in her throes of watching, rewatching, trolling YouTube for more to watch, of this delightful movie.
Do you remember when I planted all that heather in my front yard?
It was specifically so that I could, one day, have enough heather that I could imagine staggering across it in despair, having left Thornfield Hall after discovering Mr. Rochester's bigamist designs.
What? That's normal.
This is what that plot of heather looked like when I planted it:
Last summer, they achieved fully-grown status. (I don't have any great, sweeping views of them, but I do have a few pretty close-ups from last July:)
Best of all, they are starting to naturalize all over the yard:
Isn't it lovely to see so much green at this time of year, and remember that it is almost spring? Let's look at some more of last year's garden. It is making my heart so light:
You should not be surprised to learn that I am something of an untidy gardener. I generally don't clear out spaces for neat little rows of annuals and perennials, preferring instead to scatter seeds and install adolescent plants where my intuition tells me they might thrive, and sometimes I get lucky and I'm right and they do.
Last summer I planted hundreds and thousands of wildflower seeds. It was a raging success.
This year I will be sowing lupines all over the joint. It is going to rock.
But the real reason I wanted to tell you all this is because it is finally beginning to feel ever so slightly like spring around here -- not quite like it is spring, but like spring is not a mere fanciful notion that you and I made up after a carbohydrate binge, wishing we could do more than huddle under our many knitted woolen things and dream of Mr. Rochester for warmth.
This week on Cape Cod, it is slated to be warm (in the mid 40s, mind you!) and sunny. Even on the one or two days that it is slated to rain, it is going to be warm (47 degrees! a veritable summer shower!).
And I cannot help poking around in the garden, looking for the first signs of my newest addition (one hopes) to the yard's bounty:
Last fall, I planted crocuses.
I made sure to choose the earliest bloomers of the breed, so that my salt-swept riverbank of a yard would have the best shot at some real, honest, early color.
I will keep you posted, my fiends.
Until then, I will stagger across my rough patch of heather, eagerly awaiting spring.