Taraxacum on the Lawn

Back to posting on Tuesday, in honor of Memorial Day, Observed, dead ahead. It’s a little early this year, owing to the shifting of the calendar. The closer to May 30, the better, but not this year.

An oxymoron for the day: temporary resilience. That’s what dandelions have in May. I mowed a lot of dandelions down on Tuesday afternoon, in both back and front yards, ahead of the wave of thunderstorms that blew through Tuesday evening and late into the night. I don’t have anything against dandelions, since they’re part of the biodiversity of the suburbs. They just happened to be in the way.

By Wednesday about noon, under warm sunny skies, some of the dandelion stalks were back. So they’ve got resilience. But the stalks won’t last through the summer, whether I mow or not. So they’re also temporary.

My daughters don’t stoop over to pick them any more, just as they don’t ask for toys any more, but the other day — when the dandelions were at their fullest — I noticed a couple of little neighborhood kids raiding our front yard for dandelion blooms.