This morning we officially began our homeschooling Botany block, with springtime poetry, an early morning picnic and stroll under the cherry blossoms, and a long conversation about the astonishing, exuberant and generous world of plants, which brings forth hourly surprises in this season. (Was it only last month that a mountain of snow still blocked the alley exit?)
Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
the flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs,
and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
—Song of Solomon 2:11-13