Down to the River and Scarlet

Around the corner, three song sparrows are trilling their hearts out from a rooftop.  Their pleasure in the day and the season is echoed by a construction worker a few doors away belting out Doug Seegers' “Going Down to the River” as he installs drywall in an old Victorian around the corner. The door of the place is wide open, and his rendering of the gospel classic is somewhat off key, but it's a right soulful crafting and fine stuff indeed.

There are tulips everywhere and in every shade of the rainbow, but it is the reds that dazzle truly - the blooms are almost incandescent in the early sunlight and so bright they hurt one's eyes. Frilly daffodils and scarlet fringed narcissus nod here and there, and violets sprinkle the garden in deep purple and creamy white. A neighbor's bleeding heart bush is covered with tiny green buds swaying to and fro on artfully arching stems.  Magnolia trees in the village are coming to the end of their flowering, and they rain fragrant petals like snow. Wonder of wonders, the first few bumble girls of the season have arrived, just in time to partake of the crabapple blossoms that will be out in a day or two.

What a splendid trip springtime is, and how much there is to feast one's eyes on. If we were to stop and take photos of every splendid thing we see on our morning walks (and absolutely everything is splendid at this time of the year), we might not get home again for weeks.