Melting snow exposed muddy ruts next to the cow yard. Tall tufts of brown grass lined the yard. Last summer’s smooth, green lawn now looked dreary, brown, and treacherously uneven. A wet cardboard box, softened and broken down, littered the yard as a strong westerly wind pushed and pulled it about between outbuildings. The farmhouse and barn appear bleak under the overcast sky. They looked naked without summertime foliage to conceal weather-weary paint, and lack of structural beauty. The winter-ravaged farmyard had never looked worse.

With nothing better to do, I rode my bike around and around the farmyard’s circle driveway. When I realized I could also ride around the old house which sat next to the driveway, I enjoyed changing up my route by doing figure eights. I felt warm despite the chilly wind.

Billy, my big brother, stood in the doorway of the milkhouse when he and Daddy finished doing the morning barn chores. I rode over to him and stopped. He said, “Listen to all the birds that have come back for the summer. Do you recognize robin song and red-wing-black bird calls?”

I responded, “Of course I do. I’m not a baby.”

My brother asked, “Have you noticed how big the buds have gotten on the cottonwood trees? It won’t be long before they leaf out.”

I hadn’t noticed that. With consternation, I exclaimed, “Those branches look dead! Everywhere I look, the tree branches are bare. I hate this time of spring. Nothing is growing yet.”

Smiling, my twenty-year-old brother said, “That’s not true. Let me show you something.” Leaning my bike against the milkhouse, I followed my brother to the sunny side of our barn. He stopped and pointed at a small tuft of green growing against the stone foundation.

It was a dandelion. A few steps beyond that was another one, and that one had a bright yellow blossom, too. Seeing it made my gloomy opinion of early spring disappear. Protected by the building, warmed by the sun and the heated stones, these brave plants grew and produced spring’s first flower. Billy picked a dandelion blossom, and we went into the house where he presented the wildflower to Mom.

My family didn’t consider dandelions just a weed. We had an appreciation for them. Some springs, Mom would make an early spring salad made with dandelion leaves for our family. She showed us how to pick only ones that were newly emerged from the ground, otherwise they would be very bitter. She poured hot bacon dressing over the leaves and covered the salad with boiled eggs and crumbled bacon like she would for a spinach salad.

During my childhood years, I enjoyed playing with dandelions. A white, milky liquid would seep out of their stems and stained the shorts and tops I wore as I shredded the stems of tall dandelion blossoms. Then, making believe I was a hair stylist giving women permanent waves, I’d put the long shreds into water. Like magic, the shredded stems slowly coiled into tight curls.

Dandelion blossoms can be used to make homemade wine, but in the over 40 years that my brother Casper made wine, he seldom used them. He preferred to make fruit wines instead and foraged most of the fruit he used from nearby woods.

Although most people consider dandelions a weed, my family had the right idea about them. They are even more useful than my family realized. Dandelions have long tap roots which bring soil nutriments like minerals and nitrogen to the top of the soil, to the benefit of other nearby plants. Some people put the yellow petals in pancake batter and eat the leaves cooked, which takes away bitterness. High in fiber, and are loaded with vitamins K, A, and C, dandelions can also help with weight loss.

When my mother was in her nineties, she commented, “Each spring Billy gives me the first dandelion blossom that comes up along the barn wall.” I was with my brother when he did that one year but hadn’t realized he continued this sweet gesture for all the years of Mom’s life. These days, I look forward to seeing the first dandelion blossoms of spring because their appearance reminds me that winter is finally over.