Potential...

 The third year on my asparagus.  It's just coming up!

 Above, tiny lettuces emerge.

 Onion starts.

 Above, garlic is peeking through!

 Rhubarb!  Rhubarb!

 Grape Hyacinth along the garden path.

Daffy-Down-Dilly has come to the Country!

I realize that my photos here are less than spectacular when you consider that so many, many others places are sporting Full Bloom Spring!  We are definitely in Spring-mode now, but our start is slower than most, I think.  Where you see mostly dirt in the photos at the top, I see great potential! 

The first couple of photos are showing my third year asparagus.  Three spring ago, I wanted to find asparagus plants to start in my garden, but they were all out, so what did I do?  I bought a packet of  asparagus seeds and started them.  They came up beautifully, but there were no stems to eat that first year.  The second year I had some nice asparagus but it is said that one should not pick it, but let it go to seed and allow the roots to further strengthen and grow.  By last fall, we had a little bit of rain and the asparagus sent up shoots and I decided it would be just fine if I picked those few tender stalks.  Oh my, but they were delicious!  Now it is spring once again, and THiS Is THe YeAR I gET TO PicK!  Can you feel my excitement?  Where you see a lot of brown mulch and just a few stalks of asparagus, I see great potential for many, many stalks and lots of spring suppers of steak and asparagus or burgers and asparagus or fish and asparagus or maybe some bacon-wrapped asparagus.  

The third photo down, you see the tiniest of lettuce leaves breaking through.  I suppose they were planted last fall and didn't quite get sprouted before the cold weather came.  I'm so proud of them for lying dormant through the winter and poking through this spring.  How much more joy I have to see them first thing this spring!  Now I feel like I have a mini-head-start on the lettuce.  I did actually seed some lettuce yesterday, but these are growing already, right beside the seeds.

Onion sets and garlic are spearing through the other dirt-colored photos.  More potential!  And then there's the Rhubarb!   Potential Pie!  One of my most favorite pies!  I never freeze my rhubarb because I think it gets too watery and rubbery once it's thawed, so when the rhubarb is ready and fresh-picked, it's Pie Time.  Anticipation is half the fun of rhubarb pie for me.  It seems I savor the whole experience so much more than I do with other pies.  I even have a big batch of pie crust dough ready.  I roll it out, put it into pie plates and freeze so I am at-the-ready when the rhubarb is.

The Grape Hyacinth and the Daffodils have been putting on a show in my mostly-brown garden beds.  After a cold, snowy winter, brown never looked so good.  Then the green starts coming through and then bam! full-blown COLOR.  It's a gift. 

Today the Littles -- Peach, Toodles, JohnDeere, Kitten, Chief  and I went for a walk-about.  There are two baby calvies in the corral now that Peach and Toodles are feeding with a bottle every day.  We had to go visit with them and run around with them.  The calves like to chase and frolic with the children like little playmates.  Then we went for a look and a touch with the baby chicks and turned out the hens.  The most important thing we did was to go bird watching.  The older girls begged for it.  The boys went back with JLo while I took the others birding in the tree patch.  We saw the Mountain Bluebirds and Peach said she's seen them in and out of the hollow tree with a hole in it.  We're hoping they are building a nest in there.  We saw many robins, many warblers, and a Loggerhead Shrike.  So much fun!  So much potential for nests, baby birds, and big birds in the days to come.

What kinds of potential are you seeing?