Texas knows that Spring has arrived when our roadsides are carpeted in Blue (bonnets)

If you have never been to Texas in the Springtime, you are missing something magical and enchanting.  For centuries, no one planted these beautiful flowers...but they still existed in legendary fashion.  My Mother and Father spent their childhood south of Dallas before moving to my childhood home in Oklahoma.  Each year, they would visit parents and would "wax nostalgic" at the site of hills and roadsides covered with these fabulous Bluebonnets.  This photo was taken on Hwy 105 between Montgomery and Lake Conroe.

Then Lady Bird Johnson declared that our roads should be beautified.  Very quickly communities began harvesting seeds and distributing them around the country.  Then other seeds were gathered.  I think the orange flowers in the lower left are what my father called Indian Paintbrushes.  As the years have gone by, the state highway department and 100's of local communities have taken on the challenge to beautify our roadsides with these wildflowers.

The Woodlands has a Festival each year to pass out seeds.  In the Spring, the medians are not mowed until the wildflowers have gone to seed.  You will see red poppies, buttercup, bluebonnets, and dozens of other varieties in every nook and crannie where someone scattered seeds intentionally - or a natural breeze transported them to more remote locations.

With the coming of the Bluebonnets, the market in Greater Houston area is showing a significant improvement.  The $8,000 tax credit seems to be spurring a lot of 1st-time homebuyers to abandon the world of renting and take advantage of these incredible interest rates.

Let's claim the "Winter of the recession" is finished...Spring has arrived...soon we will be working in the hot Summer of a new market in real estate.