Dandelion Frenzy

I know some people consider them weeds, but I’ve always liked a good old dandelion. I appreciate how they usher in spring, welcoming those first sunny warm days with their glowing little yellow heads, bright polka dots in a sea of ever brightening green grass.

I mean, really, who can resist a dandelion bouquet held tight in small chubby hands? It’s the ultimate gift. I know this precisely because right now I have cereal bowls full of wilting dandelions in my bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, dining room, and on top of the fire place. Needless to say, I actually had to look pretty hard to find a dandelion in our yard to take a picture of this morning. I love how dandelions keep everyone busy.

In kindergarten and first grade, picking dandelions in May was my prime occupation at recess. All the girls, and one little boy named Darcy N. loved scrounging around for fresh dandelions to give to our teacher. I distictly remember Mrs. Kaczmarski, my first grade teacher and great aunt, with many very large red plastic glasses of dandelions cheerfully blooming on her desk. Every day she’d toss the old, brown wilted weeds in the trash and we’d spend all our free time presenting her with fresh green and yellow ones. We’d always search for the dandelions with the longest stems. Sometimes we’d rub the flowers onto cement slabs where the raingutters drained to try to “paint” the cement yellow.

This morning my kindergarten artist-in-residence was busy carrying around a clipboard, a bottle of school glue, and some Tinkerbell scotch tape making a collage of me in my hammock swing out of dandelions and tree bark.