April showers bring May flowers, we’re told, but in my neck of the woods the saying should probably be February showers (and other, colder types of precipitation) bring March flowers.

I first noticed the snowdrops on a morning in late February, peeking their sleepy heads out from beneath a blanket of soil and an overnight dusting of snow. Their appearance seemed too appropriate to be the result of accidental timing… it was as if one of them had overheard the weather forecast playing on the smartphone of a passing dog walker and word had spread, buzzing like an alarm clock through the entire bed of bulbs. Wake up!

A few days later the winter aconites near the local police station were brightening a week of gray skies.Soon there were crocuses (croci?)…Drawing closer to the Spring Equinox, our morning walk had Dash posing with some snowy posies… in this case, daffodils.No matter the weather (sunny or gray, warm or cold), no matter the phase of precipitation (liquid, solid, gas)… the spring flowers have arrived!

[Thanks to the following photographers for making their work available through the Creative Commons license: Barbara Friedman; Andy Rogers; julochka; liz west; Corey Templeton; and Kieran Lindsey © 2018 Sidewalk Zendo. Reprints welcomed with written permission from the author.]