Winter Honeysuckle
This past weekend we had two glorious warm days with bright sunshine. It was 70 degrees here on Sunday. Honey bees were out in force, taking advantage of a magical reprise from the otherwise blustery frigid winter weather. There was a sweet fragrance in our barn yard. Our Lonicera fragrantissima (a happy scientific term to say), which I had hardly noticed before this season, burst forth in its sweetly subdued glory. The bush is robust this year with plentiful wet weather and it doesn't seem to mind the cold. The Sunday sunshine caused it to bloom its simple flowers. Jennifer and I enjoyed placing our faces in the middle of it and inhaling the sweetness. Along with the daffodils that bloom every year at this time , our rather common and unspectacular winter honeysuckle bush promises spring is coming. None-to-soon for my taste this year. None-to-soon. On Saturday I got my chainsaws out and spent a couple of hours cleaning up the broken branches and brush from the recent s