We just returned home from a month in McCall, Idaho. When we first arrived in McCall, the lake was still frozen over and there were piles of snow all around town. The mountains circling the area were still draped in white. During the month we were there, from mid-April through mid-May, winter dissolved and brilliant spring burst forth. The ice on the lake disappeared in a matter of days and spring flowers appeared as if by magic.

The sky was the clearest blue, the new green foliage on trees and shrubs brilliant, and the early spring wildflowers bloomed right before our eyes. In our neck of the woods, the Portland area, the trillium had already bloomed in early April, but the climate in McCall is mountain high and everything blooms a month later. The trillium popped up by the hundreds and thousands.

I love trillium because they’re so simple and stately. They’re known as the “royalty of woodland gardens.” They’re fragile—easily damaged or killed if picked. To me they represent simplicity and hope as they bloom near Easter time. I always look for them in early spring as a sign of new life. It was a double blessing to watch them bloom a second time in Idaho.

On a more somber note, the skunk cabbage thrives in those mountain woodland landscapes too. Lots of them. They love the damp, soggy ground left when the snow melts. Everywhere I saw the beautiful trillium I also noticed skunk cabbage plants about three times as tall. They’re hearty and sturdy and they stink. I guess there’s a lesson in there somewhere.