Well, I am back in Portland for the week. It is spring, damp, alternately cloudy and sunny, and blooming. Amazingly blooming. The tulips are at their peak, the camellias are almost spent, and the poppy buds are ready to explode. 
But what are really cooking right now are the azaleas. Pink. Purple. Yellow. Higher than my head or low to the ground, growing like wild animals in the park or tightly pruned in a small yard, the color is intense and fabulous.
And did I mention the lilac? My mother was a softy for lilac, probably because she could get it to grow and bloom in her native Oklahoma, and because the smell is so sweet. Being from Southern California, I ever really smelled the lilac…the smell is pretty weak in the Cadillac desert. But give it twenty or thirty inches of rain, and the lilac is fabulous! Here, people take walks special just to enjoy the sniffs. And the lilac keepers know it.
Even the walkway in our condominium complex is blooming. The main archway has wisteria growing in it, and there are leaves and tiny buds already. I expect it to be in full bloom when I return.
And some yards have fairy houses in them….
Love,
Grandma Judy
Dear Liza 