There is a brief window every year during which our house plays hostess to the most beautiful display of wysteria I have ever seen. Passers-by stop in their tracks. Cars (and drivers) slow to admire. Cameras pop out to capture what has to be the biggest mess of wysteria on the continent. Ok, maybe state...well, at least the city! It is truly amazing. The rest of the year, it looks like a snarly mess of green. And in winter, there is a very unusual time when the pods (like big fuzzy green snap peas) explode (when the temp drops low enough), strewing these nickel-sized black seeds all over the place. The explosion sounds like shattering glass and is truly amazing!

Anyway, spring is definitely Goshen at its best. Huge blooming dogwoods grace our front yard, the ivy continues to bloom and thicken, and the wysteria....man, the wysteria....