April Showers – A Green Spring Rain and Cherry Blossoms
The first few sunny, mild days of April passed in something of a haze for me, since I was kept mostly inside by a sore throat and fever. Today brought an all-day rain, cold and gray and falling steadily for hours, but it wasn’t bleak. It was an April “greening rain,” the kind of rain a gardener loves, an early spring rain that drenches the ground and brings new color to the landscape almost overnight, a faint, hazy green all around. Small leaves have appeared on the water oaks and on vines and weedy plants, grasses and shrubs look fresh instead of drab, and one small branch of a young cherry tree we planted last year is covered with exquisite frail-pink blossoms.