Spring has come to Galicia a little bit early this year. All of the bulbs that my sister-in-law brought from the Netherlands and planted a few years ago are pushing up out of the ground. It's really fun to check out what is blooming with CS - he even knows the names of some of the flowers now. After living in Texas for so long, where everything had to be coaxed and tended, it is a wonder to see these little faces popping up almost by the minute around here. If you look closely, I swear that you can see them vibrating.
It has been a crazy winter, with hardly any of the gale-force-wind blowing, sideways-driven-rain throwing north Atlantic storms that we expect from early November to late February. Temperatures have been climbing up into the 20s C (70s F) some days in the past couple of weeks. I can't deny that I love waking up to a balmy spring day in the middle of February, with it's watery light and cloud shadows chasing each other down the sidewalk. Even if it makes me a little bit uneasy. The sad truth is that the sideways flying raindrops provide the water for the rest of the year around here, so I guess I am actually hoping that March goes out more like a lion than a lamb(y).
In the meantime, however, I have been trying to capitalize on the nice weather to get out with our boy, and also with my camera. The other day, I blocked off a couple of hours to go shoot some pictures of the greenery and blossoms that are sprouting out all over the place here. Normally at this time of year, the hillsides are covered with gold from the mimosa trees, which are always winterblooming, and from understory shrubs and late winter crops that bloom a bright yellow. This year, the fruit trees and magnolias have sprung into action ahead of schedule. So far the pear and apple, crabapple and peach trees are the most lively.
Since they bloom before they leaf out, the blossoms look like they are suspended in mid-air when the light hits them right. From a distance, the landscape can look like there are big rabbles of butterflies* cruising between the drifts of yellow above and below. It just glows.
So. I couldn't wait to get out and get it on film. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I took hundreds of pictures. Hundreds of bright, blurry, overexposed pictures. Gah! I still haven't put my finger on what went wrong, but I have tried to salvage a few pictures to post here. Hopefully I can get out again before all of the petals have fallen off the trees. I have surely missed the magnolias, as their blooms come and go very quickly, but I know the cherry trees are still sleeping, so all is not lost.
* By the way, I had to look up the name for a group of butterflies. I went with rabble, since swarm sounded too ominous.
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