Today was overcast and cloudy and I was restless. I dressed and went outside into my garden. I wanted to find five wondrous things.

The first thing I found was a dried rose blossom. Pale and papery it hung with bowed head. It looked so delicate it was a marvel it made it thorough the winter.

I walked to the end of my garden, to see if the snowdrops were up. I had thought about them for the past week, but snow still covered the ground. Finally, in the last few days the snow melted. And there they were, the snowdrops, small and lovely. Last year the snowdrops were in full bloom on March 6th. More snowdrops will be up in the next couple of weeks.

Underneath the porch, the Northern Blue Flags are up. These native wetland plants are hard to thin. No matter how much I dig up, they multiple and are just as thick the following year. I think many people would be surprised to learn that these are native plants, but they are.

I just like the crinkly, orange brown of this leftover Maple leaf.

This resident female Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus) flew right by me and landed on the old and slightly rusty clothesline pole in my garden. Woodpeckers always cling to this pole instead of perching on branches and other horizontal surfaces. Woodpeckers have four toes. Two toes point forward and two point backward, so they can cling vertically, but not perch horizontally. This separates them from the three toes in front, one toe in back, songbirds.

Just twenty minutes outside on a dreary overcast day, and I found beauty in the world.