Well, maybe. Fingers crossed. After thinking nothing but China China China, it occurs to me to look out my window at Town Hall and remember just where on the planet I am. Readers of this blog (it pleases me to hear from people who check in here regularly, by the way, so do drop me a line) might like to know that daffodils are starting to bloom in Great Barrington, and though the trees will be bare for more than a month, the grass is green and the nubby violet plants are starting to put out leaves. When I see them, I think of the first year I was here. I was invited to a birthday party in April, just about now, for a older and wealthy woman whom I barely knew. What to bring? Coming from California, and not knowing the flora of this area at all, I somehow thought of spring violets as an appropriate gift. I went to a nursery and asked if they had any potted violets. The nurseryman looked at me as if I were mad, but he explained kindly that although he had no violets there were some attractive hyacinths…. Within a couple of weeks, the lawns everywhere around were covered in violets. How foolish I felt!

This year, with a sustainability project in progress, I’ve taken to gathering spring weeds. We had a wonderful salad of garlic mustard and dandelions the other day. Now that I think about it, violets are edible, too: I could have tossed in a few leaves.