There’s a reason they call it spring

Already, daffodils are blooming with reckless abandon here. These hangers-on are at an abandoned home site on a county road near Bodcaw, Arkansas. There are thousands of locations just like this one. The location is typical of the former rural home genre. The home site butts to the road. It has a tree in what was once the front yard – and daffodils.

My end of the country is under tension. In a big way. Millions, billions(? I’ve never been a math whiz) of plants, trees, flowers and weeds camouflaged in death-like brown have surreptitiously gone about their appointed way of preparing for an explosion coming to a location near you in a few weeks. You can almost feel the tremors. Already, daffodils are blooming with reckless abandon. Buds are appearing on trees and shrubs. The seasonal ratchet is engaged.

Before we go much further, you should know that this story started on the Photo-of-the-Week page at Corndancer.com. To see another picture and find out how this started, click here, a cool and safe thing to do.

Same song second verse. Just west of Camden, Arkansas on state highway 278, this patch of daffodils fits the pattern, to wit: adjadent to the road, backed up by a large tree, both of which were the decorative part of a family's front yard. There is no sign of the house.

If nothing else, suffice to say that our confidence in the natural order of “things” is seasonally restored, normally just in the nick of time. When winter is about to dump us over the precipice of insanity, spring springs to the rescue. In this neck of the woods, spring behaves like a steam locomotive building momentum as it chugs from the station. The place goes crazy with azaleas, tulip trees, red buds, dogwoods and a plethora of other purple, white and wild colored flora which escapes my limited powers of recognition. Some of it deliberately planted. Some of its own volition. The juggernaut continues until these genetic orders are satisfied.

Don't get me to lyin.' This flowering tree is on US Highway 79 south of Rison AR. I do not have a clue as to the species, genus or other binomial nomenclature. My apologies to Carl Linneaus, his minions and followers. Also to (I'm assuming, the late) Ms. Ruth Buchanan, my curmudgeon biology teacher at Fort Smith AR Senior High School. A resolute scientist, she would have enjoyed the appellation which I just proffered on her.

But of the four, only this season accompanies the announcement, much to the consternation of more than a few, with pollen. Unfortunately, nature has decreed that pollen is to plants as rain is to waterfalls. W. C. Fields would have said ” … such is the price of greatness.” To those afflicted with sensitivity to the yellow plague, my condolences. We have about 15 or so mature oaks in our yard, as do our neighbors. This translates to pollen by what seems to be the cubic acre.

So welcome to spring. As if there was anything you could do about it.

Thanks for dropping by,

Joe

jdempsey@cablelynx.com