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I don't usually have an issue with not being able to see the forest for the trees. This afternoon, though, even trees seemed hard to find—I was far too preoccupied with the branches. As I walked into the valley, little things, little ordinary things, kept stealing my attention. Here are a few big pictures of the little things I encountered.

I. Young Pears Still Growing on the Tree

It'll be a fruitful harvest, in every sense of the word. And what could be better to accompany my favorite artisan cheeses?

II. Green Acorns at the Foot of an Oak Tree

I wonder if they fell here during one of the storms we had this week?

III. Yellow Mushrooms in the Moss

I think these are Cantharellus minor—meaning they're edible—but I don't trust my mushroom-identifying skills well enough to taste.

Zooming in on the small stuff was a refreshing change from the panoramas that surround me at my home atop the ridge, and when I did make my way back up the hill, I realized that upon drawing back from these close-ups, the big view seems even larger. Every grand vista from the top of my hill is made up of a million little scenes like these.

I had my first wildflower sighting of the season today, just before Easter. It's good old Caltha palustris, better known as the Marsh Marigold.

As their name implies, these plants thrive in wet places. These ones were nestled against rocks and logs at the trickling beginnings of a stream on the family farm. Every year I am amazed to find these flowers blossoming almost as soon as the last snow melts, flowering while the trees are still bare, and shedding their petals for the season before the other plants have gotten two inches from the ground. I think I can understand their impatience. As it is I'm bogged down with books and papers for school, but I wish I could join these marigolds in rising out of the muck and catching some early sunshine. Alas—I'll just have to wait for May, like all the ordinary flowers.

March is the most hideous month of the year in Wisconsin. When the snow melts, it reveals Winter's dirty secrets. Everything that Winter had killed, frozen, and buried now reappears; it thaws and rots in the first warmth of spring like a corpse unearthed and set before the sun. The grass on every hillside turns a dull and sickly yellow, the branches reach out as bare as bones, and every footstep is mired in mud. It is all for the sake of a coming resurrection, and soon the fields and forests will live again in splendor. It just takes time. Spring will not be hurried in making its miracles. Meanwhile, even March conceals a trace of beauty for those curious enough to look. As evidence...

I. Snow shrinks before a blue sky near the forest's edge, where grass will soon be greening:

II. Last year's apples still hang in their leafless branches, shriveled and rotting. These might not put Snow White to sleep, but they would probably give her a stomachache:

III. Sunlight pierces the woods, undaunted by as-yet leafless tree-limbs, and maple trunks stand like the pillars of an ancient ruin:

IV. Moss grows at the foot of an old stump while melting snow glimmers in the sunlight:

V. Boulders stand by while a stream of meltwater sweeps beneath sheets of thawing ice: