I wonder what it would be like to live in Seattle. After eight days of grey skies and rain we experienced sunshine yesterday. It actually started on Sunday with a glimmer. A quick parting and rejoining of cloud cover that triggered a gulp of breath on my part. “Oh my, God,” I said, ” I think that was sunshine.” This while my husband and I made way to LL Bean after a walk in the woods where we saw these lovely lady slipper flowers. (If I’ve got that wrong and they are something else, please correct me in the comments.) I’ve seen one or two together many times but I’ve never seven as in the picture on the right. They seemed to be popping up everywhere (along with mushrooms) in the saturated woodland floor. The tree leaves had just exploded as well and were that wonderful springtime yellow-green against wet, black bark. So amazing. Just five days ago there were twigs, and branches, and buds, and rain, and rain, and rain. Today there is hope.