Waiting, waiting, waiting for spring

A beautiful, sunny morning today, but with a cold east wind blowing. The sun was most welcome and gives me that anticipation for spring.

My pansy has more blooms.

I love pansies--violets--heart's ease.

Here are a few leaves of peppermint. Every winter the peppermint dies back, but it's so hardy that when spring comes, all I'll have to do is give it food, water, and sunshine and soon it will fill and overflow the pot again.

Just a reminder that peppermint is so hardy as to be invasive, and I would never plant it in the ground, as I understand it would take over a flower bed and start going beyond the bounds even of that.

Here's the sunny side of the deck:

And here's what I usually call the shady side of the deck, but the time of day and year made it sunny, too, for a short time: