Dancing with the Daffodils

  To me, spring is heralded by daffodils blooming

and I can't think of a better way to greet the spring season!

 Daffodils have always been my favorite flower...

It all started when I first saw the Disney cartoon version
of Alice in Wonderland as a child.

The happy goofy silly 'daffy-o-dills' just made me smile!

  ...and every spring since, the nodding, bouncing, golden blooms 

have been my spring flower of choice.

When we considered moving from Southern California up to Seattle,

we drove our family up to check it all out -
The trip was made over my birthday in March.
One day, we drove North to the Skagit Valley to see that area... 

And as we crossed the river and through the farmland,

  I saw a sight that quite literally took my breath away:

Hundreds of acres of Golden Daffodils!

 I was completely surrounded by
hundreds of acres filled with nodding, swaying, happy daffodil blooms!

I had never seen anything like that before... and I was in my own little heaven.
(We used to have a video of that day, and the color of the flowers

was so intense that it looked like they were radiating yellow into the air!)

In April, those same fields are home to hundreds of acres of tulips, 

for the world-famous Tulip Festival.

To me, the daffodils are the stars...

I wandered lonely as as a cloud

    That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

    A host of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

    And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line

    Along the margin of the bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

    Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: --

A poet could not but be gay

    In such a jocund company!

I gazed, and gazed, but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

    In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

    Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

 ~ William Wordsworth

I used to drive up to the Snow Goose farm stand - across from the famous Snow Goose Field - and buy armloads of daffodil bundles. Now I get them at TraderJoes!

Whether you get them at a farm stand, a garden center,
the grocer, or your own yard,

a bunch of daffodils is an inexpensive way to
bring spring home.