Grandma's Irises

 Eleven years ago when we bought our little Taylor hillside, I planted the iris rhizomes I had brought from Texas.  They had been carefully culled from my grandma's little place in Young County, toted up to Taylor County, and finally hauled to Taylor, Mississippi.  Like almost everything else, I was totally unprepared for living in a suddenly wet all the time environment after a life time in dry northwest Texas.

 About 3 years after I planted, and nary a bloom had been seen, I went out one morning to take out the trash and there was a riot of yellow irises blooming by the trash bins--where I had carelessly tossed the rhizomes I decided were too far gone to plant.  They had lain on top of the ground in an elevated area by the driveway.  After that surprise, it has been a long spell of nothing.  I kept thinking the rhizomes were too deep and probably drowning in all the soggy soil here where it sucks your foot into the spongey ground as you walk.  I never got around to doing anything about it.

 While home a couple of weeks ago, Sis and I were talking about Grandma's irises, and I bemoaned that none of them had bloomed save the ones by the trash bins one year.  Yesterday morning, I went out to stretch a little from having spent all morning on the computer grading and prepping.  A little flash of yellow caught my eye and I walked down the hill.

There she stood--the first time since arriving to this hillside 11 years ago, two yellow-as-sunshine blooms, with a third waiting to show out.  A gift I was not expecting--the best kind.