The Daily Procrastinator

Ok, maybe this isn’t news to some of you, but I’ve had my head down with deadlines for two weeks.  I just walked out of the house for the first time in — well, I can’t even tell you how long, really — and discovered that spring was here.  Spring!  Here!  Now!

I’m a transplant to California, 10 years and counting, and while there are definitely benefits to this climate, I don’t tend to be overwhelmingly effervescent about my presence here.  But today, everything was different.  It’s 74 degrees and sunny.  The skies are blue, the clouds white and wispy, the hills still green from the winter rains.  The trees are in bloom.  The air smells like flowers… at least for the 30 seconds before my nasal passages closed from allergies.  But still!  Spring!

But here are the two most exciting parts of my day:

1. Butterflies!  Butterflies are on their migration path from south to north.  There are hundreds of them filling the sky right now.  Beautiful little butterflies, orange and black, fluttering through the air.  Now, for me, seeing one butterfly is a nice treat, but imagine seeing them everywhere.  They’re lovely!  And if my iPhone had a faster shutter speed, I’d take a picture of them for you.  Instead, you will have to settle for a generic (and far more beautiful) picture of a single painted lady butterfly.

Painted lady butterflies? Monarchs? I haven't seen one land, but the orange and black coloring seems to indicate one or the other.

2. Artichokes!  Having grown up in the northeast, the idea of growing artichokes seems absurd.  Yet I planted one small artichoke from a 3″ pot last spring, and by last June I had a harvest of 13 of them.  This year, the plant is bigger and stronger than ever — about five feet high and six feet across already — and today it’s showing the first artichoke bud of the season!  If that’s not a sign of spring, I don’t know what is, people!

My massive, mutant artichoke plant would dwarf this one, but this is still a good picture from Peoria Gardens.

I realize that I’ve been using a lot of exclamation points in this post, but my general enthusiasm for spring combined with the sheer suddenness with which I’ve realized that it’s here… well, I’m just overwhelmed!  

So Happy Spring to everyone!  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go sit in a park and watch the butterflies.