Well, the official start of Spring happened today. Though, that is a point of contention between my husband and myself. He thinks Spring starts with Opening Day. I think it starts when I feel the overwhelming need to weed a flower bed.

The air was warm today and the quackgrass was calling. I gleefully ripped it out by the handful and mercilessly attacked the wild garlic while I was at it. The just burgeoning dandelions did not have a chance as I wretched them out of the rain dampened soil. Chaos and destruction in the weed world is a good day in my book.

I find it kind of funny that I do not consider the appearance of flowers to be the start of Spring. The showing of snowdrops and Siberian iris are good signal flags that Spring is on her slow-ass way, but their appearance is not the start of Spring in my mind. The early flowers are more like the Secret Service of Spring. Making sure that all is ready and that winter has not laid a devious plot to assassinate her when she arrives.

But the fist time I fail to make it to my front door after coming home from the grocery store because I just wanted to pull one errant blade of grass… and 2 hours, one ruined pair of jeans and “groceries still in the car” later… this has got to be Spring.

My husband can keep his silly Indian Opener as the start of Spring. I know for a fact it snowed on opening day last year, so what kind of Spring start is that? I will stick with the tried and true method of “Oh, that should not be growing there. I think I will just pull it” as the real measure of when the Spring starts.

Light & Dark. Black & White. Yin & Yang. Ben & Jerry. Today, the world is in perfect balance with the sun spending an equal amount of time on each side of the world.

Astrologically, today is the first day of Spring, though most years you wouldn’t know it. But it happened that Mother Nature was feeling obliging and it was rather warm this particular afternoon.

Vernal Equinox tends to be thought of as one of those mysterious Druid holidays involving wild, naked dancing closely followed by the practice of porn level fertility rites, but in fact it is a much more staid, much older and more widely recognized celebration date.

Before Druids ever existed in the world, the Irish were celebrating the equinox. As did the Saxons, the Mayans, the Romans, the Native Americans, the Persians, the Japanese and just about any other culture that had someone who had the wits to claim that they were too busy deciphering the stars to go out and hunt or work in the fields. So important was this date, that many cultures considered it to be a New Year celebration.

Even before modern science, cultures were fascinated by the perfect balance that occurred on this date. And truly it is a day to celebrate. The days will getting longer and my garden will be growing soon. The vernal equinox is the natural equivalent to Christmas to a dedicated gardener like myself.

I am happy to announce that I am now the proud mama to a bunch of bouncing babies! If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s now illegal to smoke anywhere public in Ohio, I would pass out cigars.

Now let’s just see if I can keep my new babies alive past the true leaf stage. It’s the terrible true leafs that give people so much trouble.

The magnolias are in bloom in Cleveland and I am not there to see them. I am just the jet setter this week and I am now in Boston for a business trip. But I did get a few hours at home to see my beautiful magnolia tree.

My magnolia tree is bigger than my house, and I live in a pretty tall house. When it is in its glory, it is just breath taking.

Every year I say that next year I will have a magnolia party in my back yard when the tree is in full bloom. *sigh* but not this year. Maybe next year.

Ugh… I’m just pooped. I spent a good portion of the day outside.

The beginning of the season is always tough.

First of all, you are way out of shape due to the fact you did absolutely nothing during the winter. Your butt is fat and your muscles are weak. Hence, you work you butt off and end up in some serious pain the first couple of warm weather weeks.

Second, this early in the season, there is very little looking lush and green. Even your evergreens look a little beat up and weather worn. When the blush of the first blooms of spring wears off, all you see is a desolate, half-alive wasteland that was once your garden. You know that it will come back and be beautiful again, but… There is this little twinge in your heart that says it’s too much. That this year your yard won’t come back. But fortunately, Mother Nature always proves us wrong.

I cleaned out the peony bed today and started on the pond. I also laid out the dimensions of my Grass Couch, for the Couch-Grow-Along and did some weeding the herb bed.

I am exhausted.

I could not go outside today.

My two youngest have both vomiting and diarrhea. Yeah, didn’t want to take them out. Shame they were sick. It was 60F+ today. At least I got to put the top down on my convertible when I went to the grocery store after my husband got home.

But yesterday, I got a lot of time in my yard. Did some weeding and cleaning, and a little mourning. See this is a bitter-sweet time of year for gardeners. We are so excited about everything coming back, but little by little we realize that some of the babies and old friends we cared for last year are no longer among the living.

I still have a few more weeks to hope that they will return, but there are a few that I am certain are not coming back. The primroses and peach tree are definitely dead. I have always, always wanted primrose to grow and it has never lasted in my yard more than a season or two. I had gotten hope as the named variety primrose that I had in my shade bed had made it through the previous winter. But no sign of it after this winter.

The peach tree is gone as well. It was a gift from one of Jeff’s former co-workers who was from Italy. It held on for 4 years but Cleveland cold finally got the better of it.

Then there are a few blank spots in the beds that I know there should be something but I can’t remember exactly what I planted there. They are mostly babies, bought spur of the moment last year and not strong enough to make it through the cold.

So, let’s take a moment to mourn a few lost friends, even if we can’t always remember who exactly they were.

Still cold. But I couldn’t do any gardening today if it was warm anyway. Today is the Official Buzzard Day. What is Buzzard Day? Well, Capistrano has swallows, and Hinckley (a suburb of Cleveland) has buzzards, well turkey vultures but it doesn’t sound as cool to say Turkey Vulture Day, now does it?

Jeff’s uncle lives in Hinckley and he has a party every year for Buzzards Day. We always go.

The buzzards actually came back a few days ago. I saw one on the highway eating a dead animal. Yummy! But this is the official day. Welcome back Buzzards!

Still cold out today, so I thought I would share a field trip I am hoping to take in the next few weeks. Here in Cleveland, we have the famous Lake View Cemetery, home to the grave of James A. Garfield, 20th president of the United States.

It is also home to the less known, but more impressive, IMHO, Daffodil Hill. This is the 3 acre area in the cemetery that is just covered in daffodils. The official Daffodil Sunday is on April 16 but I will be out of town that weekend (Going to Vegas!) so I will go another day in April. The boys should get a kick out of it.

Yep, yesterday I was out in a t-shirt planting peas, this morning it is snowing. It suppose to stay cold for the next week at least.

I planted some peas yesterday, in the tomato bed from last year. I try to rotate my garden, but it is not very big so that can be hard. But I have read that you do not really need to rotate every year, just every few years. I planted Garden Pea Burpeeana Early from Burpee. I picked them up at the local Target. They aren’t anything special, just early ripening. I only just last year started planting peas. To tell the truth, before that, I did not have any raised beds and the ground this time of year was just too wet, like swamp wet and unsuitable for anything. But with the raised beds I put in, the ground is much drier. I got an okay crop last year and due to poor planning I did not really have time to research a good pea. So I just picked up the first one I could find. Hopefully it is a good one. I am going to have to look into this for next year.

I was wondering why Mother Nature hates me. Okay, maybe not just me. Why does she hate Cleveland? Today it’s 65F. Tomorrow it’s suppose to be 34F. That’s just lovely. Really, thanks for the strip tease, Nature.

On the indoor front, my two new citrus trees are trying to live. The calamondin is doing well, but the pink lemonade lemon is having leaf drop issues. *sigh* I suppose that is what I get for buying trees at Lowe’s. They were just $15 each, a bargain for such hard to find citus trees. They were poorly cared for though and as with most citrus, once you abuse them they need a good deal of time trust humans again. I should know, I nearly killed my orange tree and did kill a key lime. I think I should be able to pull the lemon through though. It would be easier if I could put it outside.