Tulip planting

Today I went to Agway in pursuit of a kitchen scale (for canning, see, baby steps). I came home with a dozen quart jars, a dozen pint jars, some bargain-table sedums, and twenty tulip bulbs. Ten yellow, and ten "easter mix."

Kneeling in the scraggly grass of our front yard to plant them, I realized the best thing about tulips. The best thing is, I'm going to forget I ever planted them. I'm going to totally forget every detail of this halcyon mid-September day. The April morning I come outside to stand in a puddle of snowmelt, squinting and scowling at the pert green tips I can't identify, pushing themselves upwards where last year only lilies and peonies stood... frowning, perturbed... until it dawns on me, and everything comes flooding back. TULIPS! There's such distance between the outlay of money and effort and the reward of the flower, you forget there was any effort at all, and what you're left with on that April day is just goodness, goodness, goodness.

To close, a totally gratuitous shot of the Ginger Gold apples on my dining room table, looking about as Ginger and Gold as possible while still maintaining their appleness. And they smell fabulous.