The little leaf casings are sticky. The still folded leaves are as soft and smooth as velvet. The grass is green thanks to recent rain but the rushes beside the pond are still last-year’s pale straw. Only they remember the first hard frosts of last fall, the dark clear nights when only the stars circled overhead. The winter was long, cloudy and icy underfoot.

But all the life that was suspended, seemingly gone forever is coming out into the daylight.

Unbelievable as it seems I saw a red butterfly in a quiet section of the woods over a week ago. A week ago it was dark and cold at night. Sometimes it seemed to me that we were all under some winter spell and that we would never feel warm or complain that it was “ too hot.” But it is the coming out party for all nature… and here is the master of ceremonies.