Today I planted most of my last batch of tulip bulbs.  While I was digging in the cool soil I thought of several friends who are going through tough times with illness, family problems or unemployment.  Many garden writers have said that gardens are a refuge and working in them is a source of hope.  I think that planting bulbs is a great example of that.  You plant them in the hope that in five or six months lovely flowers will spring out of the warming earth.  By the time the tulips come up I hope that my friends will have come through their various trials and feel the same happiness that I feel when the days begin to lengthen and the light returns.   A small chore like planting a bulb is really a big leap of faith.