Regeneration!

I don’t know if we had the harshest winter on record, but it surely seemed like the longest. It has been many months of gazing at nearly colorless deciduous skeletons out my window, wondering if maybe the cold was just too much for them, if maybe they were as dead as they looked, if even spring couldn’t save them.

But this week, confirmation that something wonderful indeed has been happening within those seemingly lifeless bones!

Purple catkins on a male plains cottonwood. The catkins emerge before the leaves because the pollen is transmitted via wind--of which we have plenty this time of year.

Chartreuse catkins on a female plains cottonwood. It's been estimated that one cottonwood produces millions of seeds every year.

Buffalo berry are in blossom in the windbreak.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” –1 PETER 1:3 (NASB)