Happy Groundhog Day.

I don’t have a groundhog but I do have something popping up out of the ground.

My buttercups are up and budding. They range in size from a half-inch of green just peeking out to fully up, six-inch tall stalks with buds. Mind you, it’s only 24°F outside, but these little soldiers are marching onward to blooms.

They do this every year. It’s really way too early; I have more pictures of buttercups in the snow than is right. But they come up anyway, reassuring me that winter will, indeed, end. They don’t seem to mind that it will inevitably turn sharply cold on them, like it has today. It was warm for a few days; they woke up, and came up. Like I say, they continue to do this every year, so I’m assuming that I only have the cold-resistant survivor ones left. And I’m thankful for the brave little things.

Winter is hard on me. I’m one of those people sensitive to the lack of light. The dark and the cold push me toward depression every year. I use special lights to help make up for the lack of real sunlight. But we are well past the winter solstice (shortest daylight of the year) now, and I’m going to make it to another spring.

And the buttercups prove it.

p.s. The roundup of January’s granny squares is coming.