Blackwater in Spring
Spring has come, we think in Ballyduff. In past years, the daffodils would have been bursting to life by Firbolg, the eve of February, but they are only blooming now. The little flowers — the pansies and snow drops and friends have come to life. The trumpeter swans are luffing their wings up and down our magisterial river, the egrets and terns are about with their crazy, fluted calls. Buds are bursting on the hibiscus, the ever over-exuberant hydranges. Maybe if the frost — such frost never seen so fiercely or repeatedly over and again in Irleand for at least fifty years — will stop,well maybe the symphony of spring here in the hidden Ireland will turn our heads with some awe again very soon.
We have the spuds ready to go, the British Queens, and Kerry Pinks; we have the onion sets shooting tendrils hungry for loamy soil. Ready, set, go.
