Sunday, March 28, 2010

Nature Notes: Daffodil Days

Spring Moon 2

Daffy-down-Dilly
Has come to town
With a yellow petticoat
And a pretty green gown

- Nursery rhyme by Nathaniel Hawthorne

For me, spring officially arrives with the sweet scent of daffodils, my favorite flowers. We have a single clump of the big, classic, yellow kind at the corner of the porch, and they are in full bloom. The moon was out in the daytime when I got home on Thursday, too - double the magic!

When I was a child, we lived above a garden on the banks of a river. In her younger years, my grandmother had planted daffodils over the entire bank down to the garden. There they cheerfully spread over the years to become a carpet of golden blossoms. Following the stone steps my grandfather had carved into the hillside, we breathed in their fragrance and glowed in their reflected light.

We picked armloads of them for the house at Easter, where they returned joy in full measure to my then house-bound grandmother. To this day, the sight of a daffodil sweeps me back to those childhood holidays ... Sunrise service, new patent leather shoes, scratchy layered petticoat and a frilly dress, white cotton gloves and a hat with ribbons ... egg hunting and Easter basket chocolates and ham for supper ... the whole family gathered, eating and laughing together ... ballerina-twirling through the daffodil perfume.



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15 comments:

EG CameraGirl said...

I love daffodils too. I wish they were in bloom here but it will be a few more weeks. I consider it spring when I find pussy willows. If I waited for the daffodils, winter would seem too long. LOL And truly the days ARE longer now and the air a bit warmer. I guess it depends on where you live!

Anonymous said...

We have daffodils in our front yard an back yard.We love to look at them all day long. I have many photos of daffodile. Spring is here. I wound like to say that I missed your post and hope every thing is O.K.
Bye Bye Ed

Unknown said...

OK. This is simply beyond gorgeous!
I might be a copy cat and try this one of these days :D
I so love this!

(And yes, love daffodils AND the moon too) :)

And hey, days are here longer now too :D I miss the pussy willows, EG mentions, sniff,....

Carver said...

The daffodils in this post are gorgeous. I'm the same way about being transported to my childhood by them.

Sallyacious said...

What a lovely, lovely memory.

marina said...

what a gorgeous capture!

Caron said...

That is a very nice memory! We don't have daffodils yet.

lifeshighway said...

Brings me back to my own family Easters. All the way back to the ribboned hat and white gloves.

I can almost smell the bank of daffodils.

Tammie Lee said...

gorgeous yellow
moon and sky
wonderful!

MyMaracas said...

EG, you're right - the pussy willows were the very first sign of life this year. But I do need a daffodil to launch myself into spring mode. LOL


Ed, I'm glad you have some too! Nothing's wrong, I just lost an Internet connection that could upload photos or download blog pages for a week or so. My service is very unreliable. It's nice to be missed!

Nicole, copy away! I'd love to see what you come up with. Pussy willows are pretty easy to grow. I'll bet you could plant them, though they'd be exotics where you are and might need a little extra care.

MyMaracas said...

Carver, you too, eh? I wonder if there are a lot of us who wax nostalgic at the first whiff of that wonderful scent.

Sally, holidays at our house were always an over-the-top event. That old house is full of memories.

Marina, thanks! It took a fair bit of fiddling, actually. ;-)

MyMaracas said...

News, be patient -- they're on their way.

Lifeshighway, you must be a child of the 50's too. I think they must have burned all those fussy hats and petticoats in the 60's, right alongside the bras.

Tammy, it was an especially gorgeous day, for sure.

ramblingwoods said...

We share the same Easter clothes memories....My grandmother usually made the dressed..sigh... nice memory. We don't have any flowers yet so I am happy to share in yours.. Sorry I am so late, I was sure I had read everything and I hadn't....Michelle

Johnny Nutcase said...

whoa! How cool is that photo? I love it...great color! The moon in the background is really neat!

MyMaracas said...

Michelle, my mom and gran didn't sew, so finding The Easter Dress meant a lot of shopping every year. Wonder whatever happened to all those frocks I had? I was really late getting mine up, so no worries.


Johnny, thanks! I don't usually have photos turn out that bright - I actually desaturated it a bit to tone it down, believe it or not.