In Advance of Spring Greening


Another dismal day to those who await the tender green of newly opened leaves; the mild fragrance of spring wafted on kindly breezes; the young bulbs displaying the treasured colours they have gathered from the winter earth whilst resting under a layer of snow.

In a conversation with our painterly daughter last night she was lamenting the advance of spring and I was awakened to the beauty of this pre-spring world that we are so anxious to leave behind. She is frantically trying to capture the colours that abound in this world, - colours that we are blind to in our anxiety to greet the greening of Spring.

From where I sit at breakfast I can see at the bottom of the mountain a beautiful patch of naples yellow, and below it the golden cast of the weeping willow as the sap rises out to the tips of the branches. As you look over the country side the tops of the willows are like great golden puff pillows, thrown carelessly over the spring landscape.
















The fruit trees reflect the same sap rising, their colours varying from a warm rose to a deep and rusty red.













The red osier still retain their wild scarlet shades of winter.










And the sumac sport bright candles....












This has been a soft and hazy day, with a light rain falling intermittently. The air lends a luminous quality to the colours of the day, and as it changes the colours change with it.










The vivid green moss clinging to a rock face had lost its vibrancy when I came back to photograph it half and hour later, and it's colour against the blue grey rock was more subtle.
















The small talus at the base reflected this steely shade,















as does the sage that dots the hillside, with greeny overtones.
















Tucked into the crevices of the mountains and emblazoned on their rock faces are the golds, the reds and roses, the steely greens and oranges that are found below in the valley, though more subdued.














All of these wonderful colours are accented by the evergreens on hillside and within farm boundaries, surrounding the houses for shade and for windbreak .


Within these same yards the white skeletons of birch trees are haloed by a haze of rusty red falls, and the pussy willows are opening to scatter their pollen on anxious allergy sufferers!
















So little time to capture these colours to canvas, - already the early leaf buds swell pregnantly towards the burst of spring time green that will take precedence over all else.

Spring hesitates and flirts with those who await her coming, but as she vamps us with coy promises Mother Nature beguiles with another kind of beauty that is not overtly apparent except to the watchful eye.