Once again it's glowing red behind our house. As in previous years, the tulips that a wise person planted there a few years ago are blooming again this spring. When I looked behind the house for the first time in mid-spring almost 10 years ago, it was just as gloriously red as it is this year. And the spectacle is repeated every spring, without the tulip bulbs being taken out of the ground and replanted later.

Nature is totally left to its own devices here, except that from time to time the weeds are removed, which here in Japan sometimes sprout faster than you can even look. But perhaps these are the conditions that our tulips like as well, because they also seem to do extremely well every April.

Slim and slender, they stretch upwards and open their flowers wide. Now is their time and for a short while they are clearly the center of attention. When they have finished blooming, I will at least remove the dry stems and then hope that this miracle of nature will happen again next year. And I'm probably not alone in this hope...