First flowers

Jaan's flower
Originally uploaded by fylliska.

The photo above was still in Naro-Fominsk. I haven’t taken many here the past few days. When we got back the same little yellow мать-и-мачеха were blooming everywhere here, too. Jaan also found a caterpillar there! He’s diligently searching for one here, but so far we haven’t seen any signs of them.

On Sunday I saw the first primroses blooming. Maybe it’s not quite fair, because they’re in front of a building that has full sun and the hot water pipes running right under their flower bed. But the flowers are starting! We still have a little bit of snow left to melt by our door. Today we were very excited to see the first little tips of the tulips we planted in the fall. They’re supposed to bloom red, and the sprouts even look red.

I love when spring and Easter coincide. This year Easter seems a little early, but we are seeing signs of everything coming back to life to celebrate the Resurrection.

There are definitely signs of spring cleaning. A few days ago I even saw so many babushki cleaning their rugs at once that they were standing in line to use the rug-beating bars! Holy Week in Russia is also the week for spring cleaning. For many people that’s their only celebration of this week’s holidays. In America some confuse the real meaning of this week with the Easter bunny and Easter egg hunts. Here it’s more likely to be confused with traditional housecleaning and baking.

By the way, who thought of spring cleaning? I like the idea of having everything nice and shiny for spring, but it’s terribly hard to stay in and clean when the sun is shining so beautifully outside! We’re cleaning a little bit, too. I always think it’s fun to clean windows this week and look across to see how many other people are doing the same thing we are. But that’s about all we’ll get done, I’m afraid.