JOY ALONG THE WAY: WAITING FOR ANNUAL HOST OF DAFFODILS

Came a day in February when, almost with a physical start, I remembered it was time to go out and see if the daffodils were up. Winters used to seem so long, I would start looking for them even in January. But, whisk, whisk, whisk November, December and January fly by now. I noticed, two weeks into February, that one of my favorite calendars was still showing January.

Without even grabbing a jacket, I hurried out as if I were behind time in this yearly ritual. The first call of a dove usually alerts me to this annual inspection. But three days of the doves' calls went by before I realized what my uneasy feeling that I was neglecting something was all about.

The place where I have gone to see if the green spears are above ground has, changed over the years. Way back, they were along a picket fence to the north side of the house, and only a few at that. When we built our home and furnished it, there wasn't any money left over to buy bulbs. So what I had, came from friends and even some from the long ago farm. Their blossoms were, of course, the old-fashioned kind that just kept on blooming down through the decades, faithful as the equinox. I bet they were the kind Wordsworth came upon when he wandered lonely as a cloud.

The newer, bigger kind seem to gradually sink too low into the ground and quit producing flowers after a few years, unless one wants to do that bit about digging up the bulbs, letting them dry and rest and replanting them.

I said to a gardener friend who always had such lovely daffodils, jonquils, narcissi, "How do you keep them going year after year?" Her reply? "I don't. I just buy new bulbs every year."

Has obsolescence been built into bulbs? Say it isn't so.

The first ones I rushed out to see in long ago Februaries along the picket fence, gradually disappeared because an overzealous mower cut the foliage down to the ground year after year.

Then came the period of the "Natural look" in the world of daffodils. You threw a handful or two at a certain area and planted the bulbs where they fell, so, in fashion, out under the apple trees that used to be, I threw and planted the bulbs and would rush out each February to see if they were pushing through the ground. And they always were. This may be good for places where lawnmowers don't go. In a yard, it gives mowers fits going around them.

So now, for years I've been rushing out to the south side of the garage and along a trellis fence where lawnmowers, don't tread. Takes a long time to learn some simple things.

I felt as if everything was in order and on time when, this year, once again, I saw that they were up. Probably had been for three or four days. I must run to catch up!

There is something so promising about these little green shoots. They look so sturdy. Dark, rich green, they relieve the drabness of brown grass and old leaves all around. They are the first instruments of the parade of spring coming into view around the corner where the rest of the band is supposedly following.

Hail to thee, blithe daffodils. Parade drums thou never wert, but golden trumpets, sounding all the certain notes.

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.