awakeningsunrise – 6:58, sunset – 6:09
11 hours and 11 minutes of daylight

 
spring13I went rummaging in the flower-bed looking for sprouts and I found them. (I noticed the green shoots the other day, but the weather was miserable and gray, too ugly to shoot. Today, the late afternoon sun was on them and I simply removed the dry leaves to expose the green.) I wish I knew if they are crocus or snow-drops. I so want them to be snow-drops. Everything I’ve read says that it takes the bulbs a couple of seasons to naturalize and bloom. And I’m so hoping to have them bloom this year. I really like the pendulous, bell-shaped white flower.

Last year I got no snow-drops. Very disappointing. They had been a staple in the side-bed for years and when I removed the flower-bed, I just assumed I could replace them. NOT. The bulbs in the side-bed had been there a good twenty years and they came up every February. (Most flower in winter, before the vernal equinox.) I don’t know when I started using them as indicators of spring, but it must have been years after I had planted the bulbs, because I had no idea that they didn’t bloom the first or second year after planting. Back then, I was putting anything in without reading the packages. And the only reason I read up on snow-drops was because I missed them the spring the side-bed was gone.
 
21 days till spring