A Celebration of Spring
By Dawn Neff

Once again my friends we are seeing signs of Spring! I think most days it may be imagination on my part since in our area we are seeing 30 very cold degrees but....

Now you can make your indoor Easter Basket centerpiece. Pick out a pretty pastel basket, put in a plastic liner, fill with potting soil. Now add grass seed, yes, plain old grass seed. Any fast growing variety from the feed store that you can buy by the handfuls. Mist until damp. Keep damp, soon you will see tiny shoots coming up. You can then add a small toy bunny and a couple of your colored eggs and you have a living centerpiece. Beware, your cat will love to eat the greens! I grow grass for the cats and my birds year round.

Have we had our reality check on the seeds? Now don't get discouraged. Do try something new every year, just make sure it is growing where it needs to be. If everything is where it needs to be, you will have less maintenance.

I have begun my annual garden journal. I find that it is most helpful to sit down now and read the suggestions I made to myself last year or the year before. I know what worked and where and why something else didn't work where I put it.

See yourself as an artist with an ever-changing canvas and really enjoy yourself. I am amazed at all the things I have forgotten but fortunately jotted down to remind myself. And I love the little notes I find "Sam kitten thought he could sit on a lily pad--boy was he surprised!" The date of my first rosebud, my first ripe grapes.......

Now is the time to make your lovage tea. As soon as you see the first tender bright green shoots make yourself a healthful spring tonic to sip as you wander your yard. While you are there, tamp down any heaving damage you find and look for new growth. Now is the time I am in the garden for a short walk every day. I can't wait to see who is up and out. And I begin finding seedlings from my plants in rather unlikely places that need to be moved before I dig any spaces.

And I begin to plant seeds indoors about now. My kitties love this time of year. They sit and sniff, enraptured by the scent of the fresh potting soil and dreaming of expeditions into their fenced back yard. Even my birds get into the spirit. I bring them branches from our mulberry tree and they have a wonderful time eating the bark and shredding the limbs. They know they will soon be moved into their outdoor homes for the summer.

Have you any shut-in friends? If so, plant a few extra seeds of an easy care flowering plant and fix up a lovely basket for them to enjoy indoors.

Have you gotten your pussy willows? And your pansies and primroses? They will soon be gone from the market.

For fun, have you considered changing the menu for April Fool's Day? Serve bagel pizzas for breakfast and perhaps berry pancakes for dinner. This always drove my kids crazy when they were little. I look forward to doing this for my grandsons when they get a bit older.

Take time this month to treat yourself well. Go through your closets, get rid of the things you don't like, can't fit, never wear. You will have an emptier closet but you will see new choices with what you have left.

Buy yourself a small pot of pansies for your desk at work or home. Treat yourself to some leisurely walks. Learn to budget in time for you. Personal time makes us all more able to deal with everyone else that need us in a more productive way.

And remember, we are all of us artists in our own way. You are unique and if you don't celebrate your uniqueness it will be lost to the world for there is only one of each of us in this world.

About the author: Dawn Neff lives in Indiana Zone 5. She shares her home with 7 birds, 4 cats, a husband and a teenage son. She has almost as many plants indoors as out. She collects old cookbooks and gardening books, loves to go "junking" at yard and barn sales, and writes in and on anything in any spare moment. She theme gardens and feels that they tend to take on a life of their own and go in directions she had not expected. She also forages for many of the Native foods she was raised with and uses them as a focal point for local school lectures on nature.