Sprigs: Swell buds

Two weeks ago I flew to Denver via Dallas. The great plains below me were drab--brown rectangles, tan squares, horizontal harvesting stripes and wavy diagonal plow lines like petrified waves.  The circular fields could have been left-over blast zones from some gigantic rocket launch. Where bare trees grew in clumps, the branches looked liked dusty wool on grey sheep. 




Swell! Buds!

Last week, back in North Carolina, the red plump leaf buds on trees lining  highway 52 near Winston created a thin haze of color in the tree's crown. 











Today, two weeks and two days from official Spring, the daffodil buds are forming and I can see a tinge of yellow in the fattening tips. 

Swell, buds. It's been winter long enough.