I’m not a morning person. It seems that everyone else in the neighborhood is–up singing at the crack of dawn, preening their lawns, checking how gardens fared in the cool Spring weather. I stretch, then close my eyes to get another hour, a few minutes, a wink.

We moved here for the solitude, not the acreage. The bucolic view is a bonus, a big backyard with fertile soil. A place to settle down, raise a family.

This year, all my plants survived from sheer force of will.

Lenten roses are the most wonderful joy

they come so early, with the crocuses, when all the flowers play.

– Kathy Gallagher

Driving up the hill to the Quaker meeting

Seeing the daffodils along the rockwall

Grateful for spring.

– Anonymous

Coming Home and the season has turned—

Coming home is the sunshine of daffodils flooding the walls

just when you think “It’ll never happen”—

Coming home from far away

is having my hair curl in the nurturing spring almost-rain-dew—

Walk along the asphalt road

Turn for the stone steps going up

Conservation land

Farmer in the late 1800s

A house, two barns, and a silo? A kiln?

What/who before then?

Wampanoags here before the English

King Philip’s War

And afterwards, among them, though diminished

I was always told I didn't have a green thumb. By humans, that is.

My plants whisper to me, Your soul is green!

– Sandra Mack-Valencia

Nocturnal expeditions with Gracie have ignited a new circadian rhythm in me. It frequently strikes around 3am in concert with Gracie’s explosive head shaking, tags clicking and clacking in noisy metronomic arcs. I wait motionless in my bed. If I don’t make a sound... Too late, my breathing pattern has changed, sending a text to my bladder. Upsey daisy to the loo - the watery grave of all hope of sleeping through the night. We are up and the ritual is afoot.

Dancing in

Sweet fresh air.

Nature's harmony,

my favorite colors.

— Laura Fayer