This post won't be a long one. Because, quite frankly, the weather is far too beautiful to sit at my laptop and I have rhubarb cordial to make. As I look out the kitchen window the garden and the field is bathed in bright sunlight. Spring has made it. Despite an overnight frost which created ice on the plastic duck pond and in the chickens' drinkers.
Here on the eastern side of England the plum tree and the damson tree are out in beautiful blossom. One of my apple trees is getting ready to shine, as is the wild cherry. The blackthorn, the sloe, has been out a while and the patches of white along the roadsides and in our field are like clouds. I think there might be a lot of sloe gin being made later this year.
The fields around us in the countryside are turning from green to yellow as the rape seed begins to flower. I stopped to photograph it yesterday and the scent was heady, climbing up into my nose.
The male catkins of the goat willow have finished now, and it is the female pussy willow's, the slightly duller green catkins, time to shine. The weeping willow, with its yellow, wobbly branches, was swaying in a gentle breeze this morning. Shaking off the dew like a slow rainfall.
This is my favourite time of year. The weather is still cold so you can still get away with a cosy log fire in the evening. But during the day the skies are blue, the blossom is crying out to be looked at and photographed and the leaves are slowly and thoughtfully starting to peek out of their winter slumber.
It's all fresh. All new. Mother Nature's start of a new year.
The Seasons Outside My Back Door is a project I stared in the first week of January 2016. I'm observing and recording the changes in nature in my garden and surrounding area. A contemporary version of The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady