Daffodils from the Past

This might sound odd, but one of my favorite things to do is to pick daffodils from old homesteads. This started years ago during Spring trips down to Avalon, NJ. We’d take back roads which passed battered farms. Hardy daffys still surrounded the ruined homes.

I’d stop and pick the blooms.

Over the years, many properties have been purchased. The battered old houses and the daffys have by and large vanished from our yearly journeys.

But last Thursday the astonishing weather and my partner’s spring break goaded us to take a jaunt to Maryland’s eastern Chesapeake Bay shore. We visited a few county parks and odd empty beaches. Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge was a lovely place, serene and largely deserted, the silence broken by the sound of peepers (frogs) and birds. We saw trumpet swans, red headed woodpeckers, bluebirds and two bald eagles.

An hour before sunset the weather still bumped 70 degrees. We drove around just admiring the landscape. As sunset claimed the sky we passed a derelict farm graced by daffys.

Oh yes, I decided to return.

The next morning brought sullen skies and showers. The daffys still nodded in golden splendor. I picked a grand little bouquet, wrapped them in wet paper towels and nestled them into a plastic cup I had brought along just in case such bounty appeared to me.

As I picked the stems, I wondered who had planted the masses of cheerful blooms. I wondered who had once lived in the battered old mansion. To me the flowers carried a sense of history, of grace, of a desire to make this farm a little more cheerful.

Now the flowers rest in assorted vases in our home. They brighten my life.

I thank whomever planted those bulbs for placing a little joy into my life.