I am totally irredeemably insulted by the way my body refuses to recover from illnesses as speedily as it did when I was younger. Growing old SUCKS! I share your pain.

Hope the coming spring brings sunshine to help you heal.

Egads, sounds like a writer version of a Doctor Dolittle Pushmepullyou. Good luck and a swifter recovery.

Ed Bunyan

Pretty much, yes.

Our redbuds are just beginning to come out, a bit late. Do you have any maples? Their red, fuzzy blooms are pretty, but small. Do you have vincas? We have them, & a few violets. The henbit's rioting in the streets.

Hey, even glacial progress reshapes continents.

I remember red on the red maples in Virginia and Maryland. We have a couple of planted maples--one's an east Texas variety (Caddo Maple, not particularly happy here) and the other is a native from the southern Hill Country, "Bigtooth Maple". The Caddo turns yellow in the fall, holds onto its dead brown leaves all winter until new leaves push them off. Flowers and seeds not very noticeable. The Bigtooth turns a variety of color in the fall, and it does have red in its flowers.

Do you have beech trees? The variety we have has kept its leaves all winter & is just now beginning to drop them. Given how my hunkier half likes crepuscular constitutionals, the light leaves help find the trail.