Daffodils are finally shaking out their sunny skirts which means spring is–HERE! Yup, it’s the first day of spring. You may still have snow and ice, but here in Western North Carolina the daffodils are confirming what the calendar claims. And I have a happy little bouquet in the kitchen to celebrate.
In this part of the country, daffodils are often a marker of where old homesteads used to stand. Just above the farmhouse back home, there was an old chimney, cellar hole, and–daffodils. We had a bit of an annual competition to see which of us would be the first to discover those butter-yellow blooms and pick them for Grandma or Aunt Bess. The rule was to never pick them ALL. We always left a few to brighten that spot.
Author Lee Smith mentioned daffodils in her novel, On Agate Hill. She wrote: “On we went, her red coat flitting in and out of the trees ahead of me. Sometimes she seemed not even to touch the ground. We came into the clear and struck out along a fencerow surprising the little birds that flew up all around us. We passed that pile of rocks which used to be the chimney of an old homestead, we know because daffodils pop up there every spring. Fannie said, ‘Daffodils remember when the people are all gone.'”
I love that. Daffodils remember. And every spring, when the daffodils bloom, I remember, too.
Meet Sarah
