Daffodils and Eating Humble Pie

Yesterday I was privileged to drive into town twice and observe the world turning beautiful. I always take the country road to town if I can, and so twice yesterday I passed by the special roadside filled with blooming daffodils in front of a woods. Every spring I enjoy them and love to wonder who the former resident was who planted them. I was sure long ago there was a house there and the farm wife planted a few of the bright yellow flowers to pleasure the end of winter.

Now they have spread to a wide area, and they spell spring to me. Since there was no house or living person anywhere near this spot on the road, I have felt free to park the car and pick a bouquet of the blossoms to place on the Easter dinner table or even one year to press and send one to a daughter living in far-off Tennessee who could not come home for Easter.

About a year ago, I began to notice a new road cutting through the woods behind the daffodils, and now there is a beautiful new house back there barely visible through the trees. I wonder if they bought this lot in the spring time because they too fell in love with the spread of the daffodils.

I may need to plant some bulbs of my own now. I have bought bulbs from school children before, but they were delivered late in the after-Thanksgiving rush and I never planted them. Gerald planted some here at Woodsong in a bed by the patio from an old house site far back on the farm, but they turned out to be double daffodils. He also planted some over on the island. From a distance, the yellow is pleasing, but I really like the traditional single daffodil for its grace.

The infundibuliform center surrounded by petals is so lovely to my eye. Why did I use the word “infundibuliform” instead of simply saying funnel-shaped? Well, I am just having fun and showing off. This is the 15th anniversary of Wordsmith.org, and this week they are sending us emails with words that have 15 letters. I did not even like this word and quickly deleted the email. But I just went into the delete file and rescued it.

Talking of things I don’t like, I did not like what happened to the Georgia Dogs today when they played Florida. Florida like Washington, whom the Dogs beat on Sunday, is rated #1. (There are more polls than one, and I am not sure which are in which poll.) Georgia’s Sunday win moved Georgia to 7th place in one poll and 8th in another.

And then we played Florida at Gainesville today and they beat us by the mercy rule with a score I am not going to report. Oh me. Oh my. Talk about eating humble pie. I am trying to digest it, but it does not taste good. We lost again 4-0 in the second game. That was better. I did not think that was such a bad score to play with the best in the nation. We will see how quickly our girls can shake this off and go back to having the mercy rule end games with them in the winner’s bracket.