March and the desert bloom

It's the last night of March. I'm sitting, curled up in my Cambridge apartment with a low fire in the woodstove, knitting a hat, while a wet spring snow falls softly outside.

I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy, despite the chill. Mountain Man reports sweetly from Arizona that he LOVES his sweater and wants to wear it all the time, even though it's 80 degrees there! Here's what it was like last weekend ... how lovely ...


It was actually an unusually long and cold winter in Arizona, too. We had a great deal of frost damage in the garden, losing a fig tree, bougainvillea, and some of the more tender jasmines. But with the winter rains and the warming temperatures, it's greening up now, and the desert is starting to bloom. The brittlebrush has exploded into insane yellows


The ocotillo are covered with green leaves and tipped with their brilliant orange flowers




The first of the cacti -- a strawberry hedgehog, which actually has a fresh, fruity fragrance -- have flowered.


And back in the garden, we were awash in sweet grapefuit and even sweeter grapefruit blossoms, all buzzing with bees.



Can't wait to be back there!