Digging though our old VHS tapes in an attempt to salvage whatever there is of significance before everything completely deteriorates, I came across a segment from Eyewitness News back in either 1980 or 1981. I make that guess as to the date because, based on my weight, my beard, and the blue windbreaker I’m wearing in this piece about volunteers planting daffodils in Central Park, those seem to be the only possible years. Others who have better knowledge of when the particular talking heads you’re about to see were anchoring the local news in New York might be able to pin it down more specifically, but that’s as close as I can get. So the me you’re about to see is either 25 or 26.

Please forgive the picture deterioration of the first few seconds, as it quickly clears up—but after 27 years or so on VHS, I guess I’m lucky that it exists at all. For those of you who do dive in, you’ll see me as the guy using the auger, first in close-up from 1:19 through 1:24, and then in the background from 1:27 through 1:39.

As you can see, my love of daffodils has always been there, enough that I’d volunteer to help plant 20,000 bulbs. Little did I know that I’d someday be heading for that goal on my own property.

Those of you who’ve been following my previous gardening posts know that Irene and I have held a daffodil party celebrating the arrival of Spring each of the past three years. What you probably don’t know (and it’s likely too much information), is that I’ve gone out and compulsively counted the number of blooms on each party day, to be able to quantitatively compare the results of the backbreaking work Irene and I have done with our planting each Fall. Here’s what our guests saw each of our three party days:

April 8, 2006: 635 blooms
April 14, 2007: 939 blooms
April 12, 2008: 2,568 blooms!

And as for the total display of the season, I can report on that as well, since I do deadhead the daffodils as the flowers fade:

2006 season: 1,205 blooms
2007 season: 2,328 blooms
2008 season: 4,691 blooms!

Part of me thinks that it’s a sin to pin a number on nature, but another part of me can’t resist. Here’s a reminder of what it all looked like this year.