Spring Fever anyone?

So, anyone else ready to abandon their cars on the side of the road when they see the first blossoming cherry tree of spring? Yeah, I nearly tore the bumper off a nice Volvo when I veered into a nearby parking lot to admire/bow before/photograph/covet/lust after a glorious cherry tree bursting with the first fluffy pink blossoms of the season.

I stalk this tree every year. Well, not this exact tree, but you know. I try to spy with my little eye through all the dreary dead looking branches of every bit of landscaping on every freeway, highway divide, office park, front yard, back yard, wild meadow, apartment complex until I'm nearly ready to get out my markers and draw one in myself. Because the moment I see the first bloom, I know spring is not that far off and then I can start my evil plotting of the vegetable garden, amongst a million other spring related activities that make me insane with retarded excitement.

Here's The First Tree of the Season:




Now, forget about spring, because the best part of spring is knowing that summer is right around the corner, and that's the real deal. Don't let it ever be said that I do not LOVE summer. I do. Granted, I hated it when I lived in Phoenix, because it was always over 105 degrees, even at night, and my tires melted to the pavement. But here, in sunny CA, I LOVE SUMMER.

I had my first hint of summer this weekend when I found 10 minutes to myself and sat on my back patio in my adirondack chair and felt the sun on my face for the first time in months. There was the hum of lawnmowers, tiny tweets of a baby bird in my avocado tree, the smell of cut grass, the sting of sunshine on my cheeks and arms. It was like that Campbell's soup commercial where the snowman comes inside and starts to eat a bowl of soup and then the snow melts away and he's a boy underneath. So, I'm not a boy and there was no soup, but it was the same thing. I felt my icy shell melting off and my sunshiney self ready to jump up and hug everything in sight. I think I was actually quoted as saying to hubby, "I want to hug our yard right now!" Which is ridiculous, but it was either that or cry. The emergence of spring/summer makes me that happy.

So, after much blessed weed pulling, mowing, pruning, etc I took some photos to give a high five to the few things growing in my yard/garden right now:



Not a great showing from the broccoli, but that's probably my fault. I'll definitely try this again next winter (ew-winter). The carrots look awesome and unfortuanetly I ate the big ass carrot that I pulled from the garden before I could get to the camera to get a photo. This was me in the yard,

Me: "Hello delicious carrot. Look how big and beautiful you are just right out of the garden. I shall rinse you off with the hose and chomp you down!"

FinnyKnits: "But wait, shouldn't I photograph this perfectly shaped beauty? Won't there be many disappointed peeps in blogland when they hear that I devoured the carrot before he could be featured on Finnyknits!?"

Me: "Shuddup bitch and munch the carrot -- Finnyknits readers know what carrots look like."

FinnyKnits: "But lookit how beootiful this one is! It is perfect! I must show it to...hey wait! Stop munching! You cow!"

Me: "HA! I win. Dee-lish."

The onions look fair to ok, I'm not holding out a lot of hope. The lettuce is actually growing now, but thanks to an unwelcomed invasion of nasty bugs, I've had to add a sticky trap (big sticky piece of paper that sticks in the ground near the lettuce to catch the flying lettuce crunchers) to get rid of them and await the next set of leaves to sprout without big gnarly holes in them. Then I will make a multi-colored salad with the aforementioned carrots. See lettuce and it's holes:


So after all the drama with the winter garden (ew-winter) I'm SO ready to rip the sucker out and start on the big veggies. It will likely get as out of hand as last summer when I had pumpkins and melons running across the yard to one neighbor while our tomato plants leaned over into our other neighbors yard searching for more acreage. I have no restraint and seem to wildy underestimate the staggering growing power of the mighty vegetable plant.

Soon my pretties...soon.