After dinner, I sat in the zen-zone in the late afternoon.
The slanting light lit our front yard project in a golden glow: the Purple Trailing Lantana struggling to come back from the wet year we had last year, the Mealy Blue Sage with new purple spikes just emerging, the Bluebonnets along the curb, the wild Primrose that my mom brought back from the Wildflower center years ago, the Suess-like Pin Cushion Daisy that successfully multiplied from one to three or four, the everlasting Golden Eye that blooms in October and due to this year’s warm winter has never completely stopped, the Coreopsis in the shade of the Monterey Oak with its yellow blossom on a curling stem searching for the sun, the yellow-flowered Tropical Milkweed that has faithfully blossomed year after year never to see a Monarch, the dense batches of Purple Coneflowers standing upright, the Spiderwort that has been the pride our our yard this year, the low-growing Four Nerve Daisy, the purple Prairie Verbena that is beginning to spread, the traditional Sage that just put out light purple spikes last week, the Salvia Gregii in white and pink and coral and red, the yellow Zexmenia, the yellow Engelmann’s Daisy, the Cowpen Daisy a few of which are still blooming from last summer even as new ones are just poking up from under the leaf litter, the Wright’s Skullcap with purple blossoms happier than I’ve ever seen them thanks no doubt to the loving care of Chachi Bette weeks ago, one white Iris blossom the last of the Irises that have been blooming continuously since December and the Coral Honeysuckle growing on the trellis on the side of the house.
The air was full of flying things, bees and flies and mosquito hawks and little gnatty watchamacallems. Silver strands of spiderweb silk glowed in the light of the setting sun. And a butterfly was fluttering around, visiting each Coneflower, black and orange wings opening and closing slowly from its perch atop the orange pokey things that crown each coneflower flower. It would stay there for a moment and then launch again into the air, flying in a wide circle, returning after a while to the next Coneflower, repeating this cycle from flower to flower until every blossom had been visited, or perhaps until the sun had set sufficiently low and it was time to go.
The fair and industrious Trudy sat down beside me, returning from the task of fertilizing and watering the tomatoes in the back.
“This has been the best spring we’ve ever had,” she said.
Indeed.