When you live in Minnesota, the Land of the Eternal Winter, one can be very skeptical when the official start of spring approaches. In less than a week spring will arrive and everywhere I see there is snow. But this past week, as the temperatures warmed up to the 40s, I went to check on the garden beds, and there staring back at me was the smallest shoot of an Apricot Parrot tulip barely breaking ground. You have no idea, unless you are gardener or enjoy flowers, what good that does to the soul yearning for spring. Soon the soil will be thawed, seeds will go in, and all the hard work of fall and spring will pay off with, hopefully, and abundance of blooms. Every time I work out the soil and spend time planting in the spring, I am always reminded of Margaret Atwood when she said “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt”. I wholeheartedly agree.