FIRST BLOOMS

 This is the north side of the #2 greenhouse just beside the driveway.  The sun has not managed to melt the last of the snow piled up here.  Those black objects are bales of potting soil leaning against the lower end of the plastic to keep it snug against the foundation, safe from blustery winter winds.  What looks like a picket fence lying on the ground is the shadow of the "roof" of the "lath house"--an open construction with just some beams on top to give a little bit of shade of trees waiting to be sold.

And here, very small, on the opposite side of the driveway, sheltered in the sunny bed right up against the south wall of the house are the first blooms of the summer: snow drops.  They are an inch or two in height, with bell-like blossoms that hang over, looking at the newly warmed soil.  Pretty soon some similarly small purple blooms will join them.  All of them first harbingers of a landscape full of flowers all summer long!