KA-BLOOM!!!

Every year, in late winter and early spring, Mother Nature sets a time bomb.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

I’m not talking about an infestation of blood-sucking bugs here either.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

March is quiet. Days are still chilly, rain and gloomy greys still abound.  My camera sits in a corner, feeling abandoned.

Well, maybe not completely abandoned.  There was that trip to the Turks and Caicos.  It got a pretty decent workout there, albeit not that much macro.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

April is still a humble time for Mother Nature.  But signs and omens portend a change. Weather gets more variable. Days are not as cool.  And there’s that fuse, the one that goes “tick” every now and again, that hisses more loudly, sputtering out flower buds and showering us with its favorite gunpowder.

Pollen.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.  The end of April approaches.

KA-BLOOM!!!

No, that’s not the collective sound of allergy sufferers cutting loose with a titanic sneeze.  It’s KA-BLOOM, as in flower blooms exploding in colorful profusion, starting a floral orgy of stamen and pollinators.

And it definitely wakes up my snoozing camera.

(Click any photo for a better view)

And my nose too. Lilacs break out, summoning half the bees in the neighborhood with their fragrance.

This one’s picked up a hitchhiker, a seed that in its home context looks all too familiar.

Hey, dandelions are flowers too…

Admit it.  Nature has crafted quite the seed transportation mechanism.  It’s primed and ready for Mother Nature’s sneeze to come along and set its passengers on their merry way.

Not everything depends on spring. Succulents are succulent year-round.

Azaleas are early risers in the flower parade.  Maybe not as early as Daffodils and Crocus (who woke up from their winter sleep before my camera did), but still, by late April/early May they’re flirting with the bugs, dangling those stamen and pistil out just so.

Of course, they have competition.

Some flowers are not as well endowed…

… while others wear their heart on their sleeve, and hope for a visit from the angels.

Meanwhile, chasing around and taking in all these new sights is exhausting work.  Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the flowers.

So we’ll stop for now too, and rest a bit.  But it’s early days for the big bang.  We’ve barely stepped into May and there are a lot more floral fireworks to come.

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