The Delight and the Madness of May
May is all kinds of madness, and I'm not sure I have ever experienced it any other way. There is the revelry of the 1st of May, if you partake in it, and the explosions of colour and form as the green world returns lustily to life. I have seen more bud and bloom in these last few weeks than I will see for the rest of the growing season, I think. It is dizzying and intoxicating. I am frantically stringing more and more fishing line across bamboo stakes to keep ahead of the peas that are greedily reaching for the sky. I'm nibbling lettuces and chives while thinning onions and weeding out the clover that has snuck in to the garden beds. The honeyberry bush is delivering up funny-looking purple berries (like a blueberry, but more cylindrical) and I'm fighting off the birds nesting in the cedars for my share. The lilacs have languished just as the dogwood and wild rose have begun to flower. The columbines opened overnight. And we finally were blessed with some rain. The high