Silly Bloom

Why am I always amazed about things growing during winter here in Oregon? Don't those silly plants realize that it is January? The dead of winter? A time to stop...rest...recharge your energy for a glorious spring?

Apparently not.

One of my least favorite yard keeping duties is weeding. I have yet to find anything that really makes that a delightful experience. I have been noticing lately that all my flower beds have this subtle (in some places not so subtle) shade of green about them. No...it isn't early spring flowers making their way through the dark soil. It isn't even some lovely evergreen plant of some sort. It is weeds. Gloriously, hideous weeds. Darn things.

This is definitely not weed pulling weather, in my opinion. It is cold, wet....and did I mention that it is wet and cold? I have no desire to sit out there and clean up all those weeds. Yet, to look at those weeds every day drives me just about batty. I even laid out some Preen, a couple of times, this fall in the hopes of keeping them at bay. So...I try...when it isn't too miserable out there...to pull at least 10 weeds a day. Slow going, I might add. Very slow.

This morning, as I was taking a couple of items out to the recycle bin, I noticed this one, solitary, bright pink bloom on my azalea right outside my door. I usually enjoy my azalea. When it blooms. It has just about gotten its death sentence because I want to redo where it is at....and it hasn't been blooming very well the last couple of years. So...here it is, in the beginning of January...when most things should be dormant....that silly azalea spouting off one little bloom.

I can't help but wonder if that is the only bloom for that azalea. What will happen when Spring actually does arrive and other things start blooming? Will it lay quiet? If one bloom is all I am going to get....in the dark days of January when I am hiding away under my fleece blankets....then that silly azalea may just meet its end.

For the mean time, though, I think I will just try to remember to notice that little tiny bloom whenever I walk out the door. When I take the time to notice it, it puts a smile on my face. The bloom isn't even in a very noticeable place. It must have been trying to keep it a secret.

Silly bloom.