May Days

Spring arrived early this year — and even more remarkably in a place where the cold ocean water usually has us wearing our fleece pullovers until Memorial Day — it has lingered. The forsythia, daffodils and late narcissi are long gone by, and even tulips (where they can be grown, away from hungry, munching deer) are showing their age. This is the time for fragrant flowers: white lily of the valley is a living carpet along streams and in shady places, and lilacs are crowding dooryards, their heady perfume floating into the kitchen and mingling with the smell of freshly ground coffee in mornings washed by sunlight. The woodlands are full of purple violets and pale green fiddleheads.

There’s no turning back now, and let the record show that the Vineyard has experienced an anomaly: true spring. Or perhaps we spoke too soon.