The joy of Spring...

The joy of Spring is that you get to see what has survived winter and, in my case, what has also survived several weeks without rain.

The grass is looking brown, yet my trees have (for the most part) begun to wake up, having tapped into the ground water before winter. My sole grapevine has opened its leaves, a few nut and fruit trees are on the verge of doing so... and, importantly, my white willows are showing life - even two that have been sitting in pots, not really cared for or watered well. Apparently, they are fairly resilient, so not too much of a surprise. For those not familiar, the white willow is the original source of Salicylic Acid - the active component of headache tablets such as Aspirin - and important when you want to think about about self-sufficiency...

Just thinking about it, it would be a useful item to have for trade in the long-term. To use it, you have to process, you can't just steal fruit, but they do a lot of the hard work themselves, you don't have to have major industrial processes. There is a certain magic to it - to the uninitiated, it is just a tree indistinguishable from others, while it's a source of something important. If you take sufficient care, it can be coppiced.

Of course medicines will be available in the short term in a crisis, and aspirin is common enough that even in medium term situations, getting it shouldn't be a problem - but what if it is?

Likewise eucalyptus oils, tea tree oils... clove, if I can get a sapling and get it going.

Having said all that, it's good to see so many plants waking up.