The wonderful, wonderful, worthy-of-praise daffodils.
They endure. They teach us about surviving.
They send up their first green leaves just as winter reaches its grayest, soggiest, iciest days. They come into bloom when we really can’t take much more of the cold. Then they explode into glorious, blanketing, amazing swathes of gold.
They bring the rest of spring behind them.
After a long cold winter such as the one just ended, the trees are slow to leaf out. This year as April arrives, we are still waiting for the green to appear.
But never mind. For once there will be plenty of daffodils on hand for the Gloucester Daffodil Festival, itself a beloved and delightful beginning of our outdoor season.
Regarding survival: decades ago, our ancestors planted the daffodils across Gloucester and Mathews counties’ fields, backbreaking labor that was succeeded the next spring by picking the floral gold and shipping it to northern markets.
The daffodil industry has faded; however, the daffodils en...