It’s Easy Being Green

I was going to Round Top for business, but it quickly turned into pleasure. Green is my favorite color, and the Roundtopolis is green right now—hills of Ireland, eye-watering, Kermit the Frog green.

Winter was wet. Spring has been wetter. (If you’re going to Round Top in the near future, bring your rain boots.) My brother reports that when he drives by gopher holes water shoots out like a volcano. To put this in perspective, he ranches atop sand hills. It’s been years since anything other than gophers with a dust-cough popped out of the aforementioned burrows.

This spring is a juicy green that stains pants knees and turns cow slobber the color of that pistachio pudding salad I never developed a taste for. It was insanely popular at Methodist potluck dinners circa 1974. I would’ve rather eaten polyester.  It, too, came in lime green.

I live on the edge of the desert in a town in the midst of a 10-year drought. Our richest green is still brown. As I stood calf deep in lush winter weeds, I fought the urge to roll in the clover. I stayed vertical only because I have a healthy respect for grass burrs and fire ants. If you’ve ever had either buried between your toes, you know exactly why I was scared.

I double-knotted my Converse All-Stars (some things don’t change) and took a walk with my camera in tow. On this particular day, the wildflowers were just beginning to emerge. No flower blankets yet—unless you count the wild plum thickets—just tiny, lone sentinels heralding spring’s imminent arrival.

According to Kermit, it’s not easy being green, but from my humble perspective it sure beats the hell out of gray, rust and winter-time brown.

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by Lorie Woodward Cantu
Photos by Lorie Woodward Cantu and Anna Spencer Morse, Grace Photography

Editor’s Note: This first appeared on our blog site, goingtoroundtop.com, in late March. Life in the Roundtopolis is too rich to be confined to a quarterly magazine, so we blog in between issues. We don’t know where we’re going, but we’re going to have fun getting there. Come along for the ride at goingtoroundtop.com .