Fragments From Floyd

I look out over the pasture and hillsides from the front porch, and other than the undercoat of new green poking up through last year's dieback of field grasses, there is not much to see yet. But then, I look back in my image archives at what has been happening in the springs of years past--just weeks from this date--and get a taste for all the color and form soon to burst from the monochrome of early spring.

I have this recurrent fantasy, induced decades ago in no small part by Mr. Disney's World of Nature slow-mo episodes, of being able to watch a day or a month of spring evolve in a condensed time-lapse view. Anywhere I turn my magic viewer, I can see just that one frame--that bloodroot, shoot of tulip poplar, gray and barren hillside, or the entire valley--and set the machine to play it back at whatever rate and duration I choose. Oh look! There's a reverse on this thing too! Let's watch springtime retreating back into the cold ground of winter. Kewl!