Ah. Purple.

I get so desperate for colour this time of year. Winter's over (although that's never really guaranteed in this country), things are thinking of growing, but everything's still so dull.

Dull dull dull.

The trees are dull, the grass is dull, and I find myself prowling my father's yard in search of anything -- anything -- that's not brown, grey, or dead-looking.

There's only so many photos you can take of brown, grey, and dead-looking.

So... the featured pointless photos of the day are of two things that weren't brown, grey, or dead-looking as of yesterday afternoon.

The top one is Pasqueflower or Prairie Crocus (Pulsatilla vulgaris if you want to look it up. I'm just not in the mood for the helpful linky thing today). It's a native species here, although you can buy it in the garden centres occasionally. It's not a crocus, even though most people call it that. It comes up early like the European Crocus, however, and it's purple.

A really pretty purple, actually. You're not getting the full idea here because it's only the first (sorry, that should be FIRST!!!) open flower in the yard. When the whole clump is in flower it's fairly showy.

The second purple thing of the day is your standard European Crocus (Crocus sp., oddly enough). The special thing about this one is that it's one of the few that the deer haven't eaten yet. It's currently living under a grate (I suspect that the grate may be the reason for its uneaten condition...), but I uncovered it to take the photo.

And... that would be your obvious statement of the day, I guess.

Anyway. I know that I'll have plenty of other colourful things to take photos of soon enough, but that doesn't make me any less grateful for the early purple things that take the edge off of the spring grow-already-dammit doldrums.

And for those of you who have had full-blown spring for a while now... I hate you.




So there.