Out here in the fields.

Today at the Orchid Show, up in the Bronx, I kept telling random strangers to stick their noses into the flowers and smell. There was one moment where a couple of people were doing close-up photography of one strange, dragon-looking orchid, and I told them it smelled great. And it seemed to be almost a surprise to them that they could smell the flowers, too. It'd never occurred to me to not go to a flower show and smell everything I could reach.

For the record, that one had a strong, deep, almost Platonic 'flower' scent. Another smelled like chocolate, to everyone's delight. One more smelled like fresh-cut melon and there was one variety that smelled green. Just green. The idea of the color when you're out in springtime, after rain, when everything's fresh and growing, when the grass is bright and the leaves are all new.

I spotted a large frog in the native plant garden, and my favorite carp, the one I call the Queen of Diamonds, in the lily pool. There was a very well camouflaged hawk and purple crocuses spreading out across the hills - several of them, so the plural qualifies.

At the farmer's market this morning, I told someone I had things to look forward to.

Everything is on the cusp now. The sky's getting ready. There's one part of the conservatory that's a stairway set around a large tree, so you get to climb up and look down, around, and through the small rainforest biome as well as the flanking corridors - the upper level of greenhouse technology that hasn't much changed except for the shape of the sprinklers. Glass and water and heat, fresh plants no matter what time of year. Soon it'll be the same inside and out. They almost matched up today. Give it a few more weeks, when the cherry blossoms hit, and that's when it'll be summertime.