More new arrivals

Our next-door neighbor is way ahead of us with leucojums, but this morning we saw the first 'jums (snowflakes)of the year here. Another new arrival in some profusion is Jet Star, a small narcissus with an ridged orange trumpet and a back-swept yellow perianth. Each day there are more Ice Follies, Fortune, and Carlton daffodils, none yet plucked by a larcenous passer-by. We love the glorious clash of colors where doubled bright-red anemones are companions to strongly fuchsia-colored ones. Window-boxes filled with lettuces of varied colors from an apple-green to a strongly red-violet one and leaves from the smooth-edged to the very ruffled. Asclepias and calendula continue to bloom, as do English peas, now forming some pods. Hyacinths are here now in four colors: two types of blue and a darker and a more pastel pink. We have seen cedar waxwings overhead and kinglets on branches. This morning, we heard a dove for the first time in months.