When Summer Comes Early

It has been a very warm "summer-like spring" in Germany this year and growth is early, often looking more like late May rather than late April.  Josianne has been hiking the fields of Lorraine and the German Saar lands, her camera in hand.  Once again she has found rare wildflowers and also a landscape filled with green, white and even gold - because there is a rape field already in bloom.

Solomon Seal

Gromwell -any of various plants of the boraginaceous genus having small greenish-white, yellow, or blue flowers, and smooth nutlike fruits

Apple tree in full bloom

Trees in their meadow

Rape field already in bloom

When they were young

My great-great grandmother Lena was the youngest child in her family.  She and Thias (Matthias) her next-in-line brother were the last of the ten Rauls children.  As I imagine them, they sometimes would sneak away together to the nearby woodlots or small forests, Tice leading the way; Lena his faithful shadow.

As they got older, there was hard work in the fields from spring until harvest, but I think Lena and Thias spent some early evenings, especially in spring, in the wild areas or rocky hills, looking at the sky, hearing bird songs, splashing a foot in a pond if the weather turned warm.  And all the while they were inhaling the April smell of fresh growth and the shriveled plant remains from the year before.

Let us tiptoe along behind them.

Barefoot on the road?

forget-me-not 

purple deadnettle (purple archangel?)

white dead nettle doesn't sting says Josiane

Lying on the damp ground

Looking up, chattering, and dreaming

Walking back home