Spring 2026 Delights

Because every day brings new levels of horror

It’s been a while since I shared a list of delights (despite starting one last January that mostly had to do with public transit encounters), so here are some things that have been bringing me joy:

Graupel: mini hail is not delightful to be in, but fortunately, I’ve only had to witness it from indoors. It graupled in Washington, but rarely. In the last few weeks, there have been multiple downpours, and each time, my reaction to seeing “thick rain” flecked with white bits has been, “Is this rain?”

Wikipedia says graupel is also known as hominy snow and popcorn snow, which is more delightful than “graupel.”

Bird song: a couple times, a great tit has greeted me on my way to the office, singing its heart out, perched alone in a small, bare tree between apartment buildings and the train tracks. Recently, I’ve been charged with watering my landlords’ plants while they travel, which takes me outside at dusk. Every time, there’s a blackbird somewhere, welcoming the evening with its song (or establishing its territory and attracting mates).

Signs of spring: clumps of primula in every lawn, clouds of cherry blossoms, the smell of wild garlic, lizards baking on the side of the path and scampering away as you approach. We’ve switched to summer time (we don’t call it Daylight Saving), and the longer daylight means I get to enjoy some of these things on my bike ride home. Like this grafted tree with two types of cherry blossoms!

One tree, two types of blossoms!

Bike counter: The town installed a bike counter on my commuting route, and it’s providing a little entertainment on a boring stretch of road.

“381 bikes already? Can that be real?” I wonder as I pass it in the morning, then start counting bikers I see. I watched it for a while to take a picture, and it seems accurate: it counted two people biking next to each other and didn’t count a kid on a scooter.

Puntarelle: Gabe and I are dedicated followers and contributors to the movie review podcast Linoleum Knife. The hosts, Alonso and Dave, also make several other podcasts, including a food one, where they introduced us to puntarelle, an Italian chicory. We found some when visiting Lugano, and I carried it home on the train and tried a new vegetable. It’s good, but requires so much prep work that regular puntarelle eaters own presses for shredding the shoots.

Each one of these shoots has to be thinly sliced

Osterfladen: For Easter, I made my first Osterfladen, a Swiss tart with a lemony pastry crust and almond, semolina, and dairy filling. I used this Cuisine Helvetica recipe, and the tart turned out well. Like the tits, this name makes me laugh. Fladen translates to “round, flat dough-cake,” but when preceded by the word Kuh, it means cow-pat. An Osterfladen is a round, flat Easter dough-cake, but I’m always thinking of Kuhfladen.

Osterfladen with attempted tulip stencil

The world gets scarier and scarier — I woke up on Wednesday morning wondering if a country had been destroyed. If you have some delights you can share, please do.

Sources

Haith’s UK. 2024. “Why Blackbirds Sing.” June 13. https://haiths.com/blogs/wildlife/why-blackbirds-sing.

“Types of Finches and Tit Birds in the UK | Birdwatch ID Guide.” n.d. Accessed April 9, 2026. https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/big-garden-birdwatch/types-of-uk-finches-and-tits.