Today I went outside and made a beeline for the granite valley, where I know the first flower of spring will appear. However, I didn't find any and figured I still had another week to wait. As it happened, I found a tiny spider web with droplets, and when the pictures didn't come out, I returned with my macro flash. After I got those pictures, I looked on top of the rock above the spider web, and look what I found!! THE FIRST FLOWER OF SPRING!!! HOORAY!!!! This is "Spring Whitlow Grass", which measures only 1/16"-1/8" in diameter! They are tiny little jewels and a great challenge to photograph well due to their size and white petals. Last year I went through countless pictures to get any that worked. I'm very happy to say that I had no trouble this time around! YAY for experience!!! :) (you can see last year's picture below!)

William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". Although he lived in London for all but three years of his life, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God", or "Human existence itself". Wkipedia: William Blake