Why I'm Smiling

On the sofa in the living room and at the table in the dining room, with every breath I inhale the heady scent of lilacs. In a pitcher on the coffee table and in a footed white "vase" on the dining room table are lavish bouquets of those graceful flowers. Long ago we dug up and planted here lilac sprouts we got at the Keith Anderson place where Josh is building his "claim shanty," as I heard it called recently.

Last week I walked around outside checking out what was blooming and gathering enough flowers for five different bouquets of tulips. The week before it was peach blossoms, gathered from the prunings. This week it was the lilacs.

Last week when someone I knew passed by on the road while I was out there gathering flowers, I suddenly realized that I was wearing a big smile before anyone was there to see me smile. I can't help it. I'm just really pleased that these flowers are back, and that they've been hardy enough to put on a show again, with minimal effort on my part.

Yesterday at the garden center I saw rhododendrons in full bloom, and pitied the poor suckers that will take those home and try to grow them in Kansas. It won't work, just as azealeas and dogwoods won't work, because the soil is too alkaline. But with lilacs, redbuds, forsythia, spirea, flowering quince, and many fruiting trees and shrubs putting on a fine show, who needs azaleas, dogwoods, and rhododendrons?

God does not leave Himself without a witness in nature, even in climates that are not always hospitable to plant life. Knowing this puts a smile on my face.