March Lilies

This has been a week of crazy weather--everything from rain to snow to sunshine.  Finally we had a pretty day and I was getting ready for Easter at the farm.   About then, Hubby calls and wants to know if I had a couple of hours and would like to take a ride to the country with him.  "Sure", I lied, since I surely didn't have a couple of hours to waste, but it was beautiful out.

Soon he was pulling up into the driveway and we were off to the country.  One of the best and worst parts of his job is that he has to take pictures of all the farm structures that he insures.  On pretty days it is a delight, but in busy times it is a real time killer since it involves riding all over the county searching out barns.  Today, he warned me, we would be going about as far in the county as we could go. 

He wasn't kidding.  We started off on a three lane road, turned onto a two lane, then a one-lane and finally a gravel path.  The gravel path ended at a gate.  We had now reached the farm with the barn we were to photograph.  Through the gate a mud lane continued up a hill and on.  It seems the barn is on the very back of the farm.  We bounced and slid on, literally over hill and dale, until we reached the final gate.  Eyeing the mud on the other side, Hubby elected to continue on foot.  I elected to stay with the truck.

As we wandered on our odyssey, I had been enjoying the bright blooms of the buttercups in the fields we drove by.  These are the most fascinating flowers to me.  They bloom in the early spring, unfazed by the cold temperatures, in fields and road sides. They are not a native flower and when you see them you know that someone had brought them.  They were originally planted around homesteads by the sturdy families that settled in to farm the area.  As time passed the homesteads often disappeared and the spot would revert to a field.  The daffodils (or jonquils, buttercups, March Lilies, or Easter flowers, as they are variously called) would just keep on growing and spreading.  I had already spotted one hillside that had these yellow flowers flowing down the slope, having been spread by the natural upheaval of the land through freezing and thawing.  They evidently aren't tasty because I had noticed the cows just nibbling around them.  I couldn't help but wonder whose hands had planted the original bulbs and what joy they had brought those hard working farm wives.

Looking out the truck window I spotted a few of these bright blooms on the bank.  I decided to walk up to check them out.  As I wandered up to see them, I could see that they were around an old fallen down farm house.  When I got closer I could see that it was an old log cabin that had been covered with clapboard siding at some later date.  Where the siding had rotted or fallen off the massive old logs were visible.  Wondering about the farm family that had lived so far back in the farm all those years ago, I circled the house, keeping an eye out for holes or rocks.  As I rounded the corner I was greeted by the sight of a sea of yellow blooms nodding in the breeze.  With total delight I waded into the masses of flowers and began to pick.  Soon I had two handfuls of sunny, spring beauty.  They would be the perfect finish to the Easter table. 

As I carried my bounty back to the truck I thought again of the farm wife who had planted those little bulbs to brighten up the back stoop.  How amazed she would be to see that those little flowers had outlasted the family and the house by so many years.

Thank you, whoever you were, for adding a little beauty to the world.