Wakey-wakey
March is around the corner and when March comes, spring’s as good as here already. The first warmer days act as an alarm on the root-owning inhabitants of the land. With these first warmer days, everything begins to emerge from its winter slumber.
They’re everywhere. They’re so much everywhere we can’t avoid trampling them. Cute and colourful, violets have pretty impressive root systems that can be about five times longer than the above-ground part of the plant, which automatically puts them in the category of weeds if they happen to be growing in a veggie bed and measures are taken. Elsewhere, they’re free to grow as they please. The neighbour picks them to make some cold cream ingredient or other. She does homemade cosmetics and the word “weed” is not part of her vocabulary.
These are the flowers of a tree that is otherwise pretty unremarkable. Google tells us it is called a field elm but unlike the images of magnificent wonders of treedom in its Images section, ours are on the lame side. But they’re trees so, like books, they’re staying for as long as they are alive.
The sweet briar can be a massive nuisance due to its tendency to grow in all directions and turn otherwise decent spaces between trees into a prickly hell. But it looks so charming in the grayness and, of course, hips marmalade is the king, queen, and heir to the throne of marmalades. Also used as cold treatment in tea form since hips are packed with Vitamin C.
We had no idea what this is but it looked nice and bright, so we took a picture. Then we googled the picture and we were told it may be something called Arum maculatum, popularly known as cuckoo’s pint. It is an insect-eater and toxic from root to fruit. We’re keeping an eye on this one to establish if it is, indeed, what Google says it is.
This is the tree equivalent of a light snow sprinkle before an avalanche. Almond trees are the first to wake up in the spring and the village and surrounding areas are full of them. We think it’s because the soil is on the alkaline side and almonds like alkaline soil. In a couple of weeks, everything will be white and the air will be buzzing with drunken bees.
The power of nature in one shot. This tiny peach tree came to us infected with a fungus that last year’s rainy spring really helped realise its full potential. But disease or no disease, this tree flowered and even produced three tiny fruit. None survived but the tree did, after some emergency treatment with industrial fungicide, and this year it’s back and ready to make peaches once again. Spring is coming.