Bluebird weather #NationalPoetryMonth #phenology

Eastern bluebirds and tree swallows arrived, or, more correctly, were first seen, last Friday. This morning we watched the year's first lightning, sans, thus far, rainfall. To be on the safe side, our mukluks are still ready in the front hall should Mother Nature decide to again pull the warming rug from around us. Maybe we'll put the mukluks back into the closet come June, but, for now we'll leave them out as insurance that Spring may have, at long last, arrived.

Eastern bluebirds are back!

Photo by J. Harrington

May will be the month of leaf out and ephemeral wildflowers. We'll definitely try hard to fit in at least a couple of trout fishing trips. April usually brings us high water, mud and taxes, but also red-winged blackbirds and some bud burst. Eliot may have been more right than he knew with his proclamation that "April is the cruellest month,..."; but it is full of promises. Unfortunately, many of those promises will be kept post April. May spends most of her month honoring April's promises. That leaves us feeling about April that perhaps it's time to remember the saying attributed, maybe incorrectly, to Dr. Seuss:

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

In April

James Hearst

This I saw on an April day:
Warm rain spilt from a sun-lined cloud,
A sky-flung wave of gold at evening,
And a cock pheasant treading a dusty path
Shy and proud.


And this I found in an April field:
A new white calf in the sun at noon,
A flash of blue in a cool moss bank,
And tips of tulips promising flowers
To a blue-winged loon.


And this I tried to understand
As I scrubbed the rust from my brightening plow:
The movement of seed in furrowed earth,
And a blackbird whistling sweet and clear
From a green-sprayed bough.

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