We have one of the most beautiful springs we have ever had, probably the best. I think it is even better than the one we had in 2001 and it was fantastic. I am borrowing a little of my description of that one since it still fits.

As you can see below, wildflowers are everywhere and are continually changing the countryside; first pink then blue everywhere, then then yellow, now red. The prairie and our pastures seem like scenes from some idyllic travelogue or that scene from The Wizard of OZ as Dorothy and the party were crossing the field of poppies close to Emerald City, but with more colors.

It is a gift from God that we have a little more time to enjoy them, since we have only a small crop of our own to tend to this year. Losing our last years crop to the weather is a small price to pay for this kind of beauty. To walk among such resplendence and regal beauty is to lose all other reality in a sea of color and aroma that lifts your mind off its feet and lets it fly among the birds and insects, flitting from flower to cloud and back again, reveling in the sweet air and the symphony of their songs as they celebrate life by giving life.

It is hard to believe that only a few months ago, the Landlady's errant daughter, La Nina, ravaged us with hot and dry weather. Last year we had 100 degrees on April 15 and it stunted the growth of our crop making it small and tight instead of large and lush like we were hoping for. This year, the Landlady's son El Nino has taken over and he always brings us cooler and wetter weather and the garlic likes him a lot more than his delinquent sister. This year on April 15, we had a heavy frost. Landlady Nature's children are extremists.

Once again It was the rent we had to pay for the prior years of green goodness. Mother Earth is a strange landlady and her price is high if you live in her boarding house and you have to take what she gives you, but the best she has to offer is worth whatever price you have to pay. Out here you learn to appreciate the cycles of nature and come to accept the difficult along with the easy. After all, this is the West, things are supposed to be tough out here, at least occasionally anyway. The years of the bumper crops and the beauty more than make up for the years of drought and doubt. Some things are worth living for. Some things are worth dying for.

The beauty of our spring this year is so overwhelming I feel a need to try to capture some images of it to share with others. Not everyone can come out and see for themselves and we'd soon tire of so much company anyway, so I thought I would share our spring with you in pictures that are woefully inadequate to convey what we see, smell and hear or what we feel. When we walk out across the prairie we try to stay on the cow trails because we feel guilty about trampling these beautiful things even though it doesn't kill them. In the last years our appreciation for all life has increased a lot. Out here you can see the connectedness of all things so much better than you can in town where the concrete and steel obstruct one's vision as well as their view.