The Budding Out

Boston's Public Garden

Spring is my favorite of the seasons.  We have the beauty of rebirth to ac-company the warmer days and the end of that season of frigidness and the all-too-many forms of frozen precipitation.

While many consider it a season, but for the observer of the signs in nature, spring consists of many subseasons.   One of the first subseasons is the "Almost Spring" with the first signs of crocuses blooming and  the sign of buds on the limbs of trees and bushes.

Forsythia flowers transition to
green buds.  The forest  prepares
for The Budding Out

Right now we're come to "The Budding Out."  This is a short 2 to 3-week subseason.  Yet it is the most transformative subseason of the entire Spring.  In these few weeks, bare limbs become enveloped in the new greens of spring. 

Once The Budding Out has transpired, we're just about ready for summer.  Lawns need mowing.  There is shade on those days when the temperature gets up there.  There is no question any more:  spring has come!

The wonderful colors of the budding out:  the delicate yellows and deep red buds.

Forsythia flowering amid the early buds, in a field of bare branches.  It is The Budding Out.