Pssssst. How 'bout a little weed.

So here we are again — hail the size of apricots, winds that make you glad wraparound skirts are out of fashion, enough rain to gladden the gills of any tadpole. Ah, spring is coming! Such a warm, gentle season has such a violent beginning.

It's safe to say that March came in today like a lion. Which leads me to anticipate a lion of my favorite variety: dandelions.

Say what you want about having a lush, green pristine lawn. It's too much like work, and we have enough demands on our time as it is. Who inscribed it in stone that lawns must be without blemish in the adolescence of summer? I love those little yellow eruptions on the complexion of the lawn.

But I wax poetic here. Or something. The fact is, I like dandelions. I always pick the first one I see and inhale its scent. I'm transported back to being 5 years old in the warm spring sun, picking a bouquet of dandelions to give to my mother who would put them in a juice glass of water and brightened up the kitchen table with them.

Say what you want about a velvety green lawn that needs to be fed, aerated, pampered and coddled like a blonde starlet. On those lawns you'll never find a stem with a sphere of dandelion seeds waiting for someone to pick it, make a wish, and blow the seeds across the world. If you blow all the seeds off in one whoosh, your wish will come true.

I'm not the only one who loves dandelions. Ladybugs like to eat the pest aphids on them, and ladybugs are good for the garden. And ladybugs are cute.

Some people eat the dandelion greens raw in salad or cook the greens in a soup. The leaves are high in Vitamin A, Vitamin C and iron. Dandelion root makes a good coffee substitute which is believed to aid digestion. And it won't keep you up at night. Dandelions contain Luteolin, an antioxident.

The yellow dandelion flowers make a really good wine, an unpretentious little wine with a unique sweet bouquet and an unassuming attitude that, if made correctly, will knock you right on your keister.

An ode: Roses are red. Shoes are for buyin.' Nothing says spring, Like a dandelion.

I like clover flowers too. But that's another blog.