February 21, 2013 -- February Gold

Yesterday afternoon you could just feel the daffodils growing. It was as if the sun was pulling their leaves and buds up from the wet ground. Today, I decided to pick some. The earliest ones blooming in my yard this year are called 'February Gold,' an apt description. I dropped the flowers into my test-tube container then tried dropping my basil snippets in with them. That didn't work. They needed real daffodil foliage. Their own foliage was too young and important to pick (it was only halfway out of the ground), so I harvested some from some clumps that stopped blooming years ago but still produce good foliage.

And here is something that was gorgeous this morning--yesterday's greenbrier leaf with morning light streaming through it from behind.