Signs and portents

I sat outside to drink my morning coffee, for the first time this year. Inbetween sips I checked the lily bulbs that overwintered in open baggies (closed are too moist) in the crisper drawer in the fridge. 85% success rate. These were in pots and will go back into pots - the others are in-ground, and the next month will tell how they fared. The soil does not drain very well, here. Sunlight has returned to the last six feet of the garden, and increases every day.

In the front gardens of the Italian houses here, crocuses and Roman Catholicism thrive.

In Bay Ridge, which we visited over the weekend, early cherries are breaking bud.

Manhattan from a pier.

In Owls Head Park the beech trees are enormous, and filigreed with buds.

Two ladies foraged, but would not speak English to me. Field garlic, I think.

In Bay Ridge's suburban streets giant plane trees stand over the sidewalks, swallowing dog signs.

And: above the poisoned Gowanus (our Brooklyn Venice), opposite Whole Foods with its rooftop-grown Gotham Greens, beside a cement factory, kale thrives

While above Carroll Gardens geese are heading north, their calls high above the city. Do they know that February was the hottest month on record, on the planet? And that before that January was the hottest month on record, on the planet? And that before that December was the hottest month on record? On the planet?

Or that today's temperature - 74'F/24'C - is setting a new record high for March? In New York?

Come for a spring walk, while we still have spring