I looked out a few mornings ago and like magic my yard had come to life, seemingly overnight. The dwarf azaleas around the back patio were bursting with scarlet blooms and I could scarcely believe they had blossomed so fast.

The greybeards are beginning to bloom. Where there had only been bare limbs the day before, now there are white fringe flowers. Soon the blooms will give way to green leaves.

It has been that way for a while now, as gradually winter has given over to the most beautiful time of the year — at least to my eyes.

Look out and see greens of every shade imaginable —- at least 1,000 different colors of green — right before your eyes in almost any direction you look. It is almost as colorful as autumn with so many pastel colors in the trees. It is such a miraculous thing and no wonder that this season of the year is called spring, because beauty and life seems to spring forth from the earth.

The grass on lawns has “greened up” and with the warmer weather so many are out mowing the yard for the first time this year. Our front yard was covered with those little white flowers we call wild onions — looked almost like a light dusting of snow.

The yard was mowed, and it was so smooth and green and then, I declare! Within another day’s time, those little blooms were back out there and seemed to dare us to cut them down again. They are so pretty. I hated to see them mowed but they are there at least for now.

I couldn’t help but think about the pretty wisteria. Even in the woods those lavender blossoms hang from the trees and give off a fragrant aroma that truly puts you in the spring mood. The wisteria, you see, is a very deceptive plant. As those beautiful, fragrant blooms hold you enticed, the vines coil tendrils up trees and arbors and light posts and anything else it can reach.

Wisteria can be very destructive as those vines can grow around a tree and literally choke it off after so long a time. That’s why if you have wisteria growing in your yard, you should have it on a structure such as an arbor where it can be controlled. Even then, it will get away from you and cover everything in its path if you don’t watch out.

You’ve seen old abandoned homesteads completely covered up with wisteria vines, but they are still beautiful, even in their destruction. If you plant wisteria — even with its beautiful showy flowers this time of year, you may live to regret it.

There is a lesson to be learned from the pretty wisteria vine. Not everything that is beautiful in life is as it seems. We may be taken with its beauty for awhile, but it can turn on us and instead of being a friend, it becomes an enemy — and one that is hard to defeat. You’ll witness that if you ever try to get rid of a wisteria vine grown amok.

Spring is a beautiful time. Trees and flowers are blooming and putting on new growth, vegetables springing forth from bare earth as it warms and sprouts new life, the smell of the earth as it is turned over to start again that cycle of life.

Take a few minutes to feast your eyes upon it and admire God’s handiwork. It’s a marvelous time of the year and it will be gone as quickly as it has arrived, giving way to the heat of summer.

Don’t let it slip by. Get an eye full. Look, smell and enjoy. Your heart will beat a little faster and your step will be a little livelier as you absorb the wonders of the marvelous season we called spring.