Despite the million tons of things that there are to do every spring in Iowa, due to cleaning up from the long winter to make everything look beautiful for three months (just so it can get destroyed by yet another winter), sometimes you just have to stop and take a look around.  If you really feel like it, hauling a camera around is a good idea, too.    Enjoy — I sure did, no matter what the gawking drive-by-ers seemed to think as they rubbernecked at the geek with the camera.

Iowa tends to get extremely brown after the extreme cold of winter and the menacing snows and sheets of ice, so when it first all melts, it’s easy to imagine that the world has completely died off.     That is, of course, until some little guy like this one that popped up by our foundation on a random side of the house reminds you that in the midst of the dead earth, all you need is a little courage and beautiful things can happen.