Goldfinches have returned to the feeder, bees visit the pear trees that have burst into bloom this week, redbuds have begun to deserve their names, and new calves are afoot and nimble in pastures.

When the wind dies after the spring sun sets here, the farmers burn their grazing land to eliminate the woody-stemmed plants that would turn the pastures into thickets of red cedar, sumac and sage. We climb to the top of a hill near our home and watch through the darkness as lines of orange flames creep across distant hills. In a few weeks, brilliant green grasses will begin to cover the still blackened earth.

Forsythia, daffodils, creeping phlox, quince, and crab apples remain adamantly in bloom, apparently prepared to upstage the tulips, wisteria, and spirea that wait in the wings.

The geometry of sedum -- well, you've got to see it -- and a thousand other deserving things have distracted me from writing here this week.