Marching into Spring #phenology

It's snowing again--still--some more. Snow is like contemporary politics and social media, if you pay too much attention, any one of them can and will drive you nuts. If you don't pay enough attention, you may miss something significant. Then again, I bet the folks that were stuck in and on an Amtrak train for 36 hours hadn't anticipated that delay no matter how much attention they were paying. We did better slightly more than a year ago when the Better Half and I took a train to Boston in early December, although at one point (Chicago?) we had to exit after walking back several cars because the storm we travelled through froze the doors and descending steps in place.

Canada geese returning early

Photo by J. Harrington

Next month's weather is frequently enough to try the patience of a saint so we'll focus on a number of other items that are worthy of celebration. March brings to us:

• The start of meteorological Spring


• The Better Half's birthday


• Daylight savings time (we should just stay on it)


• St. Patrick's Day (When we lived in Boston, we often marched in the parade as a member of our grade school band. Some years we marched through a snow storm.)


• Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 100th birthday!; and, last but far from least


• Earth Hour

bright red osier dogwood

Photo by J. Harrington

Sometime during the month ahead, we'll look for red osier dogwood to show bright color; the return of Canada geese and other waterfowl; at least some of the snow on the ground to melt (Please?); maybe the year's first rainfall; some bud burst on some trees; maybe a chorus of frogs; and other signs of life returning to our North Country. That's a marked improvement over February's Ground Hog Day, Valentine's Day and Presidents' Day, although, mostly in locales with warmer climes than here, early February does bring the celebration of Imbolc. So, chin up, in a couple of days it'll be Spring. Will someone let Mother Nature know about that. It seems she sometimes gets forgetful at her age and forgets to turn up her thermostat in some places. Elsewhere, you can see Spring headed North, even if it's a

Cold Spring

By Lawrence Raab

The last few gray sheets of snow are gone,

winter’s scraps and leavings lowered

to a common level. A sudden jolt

of weather pushed us outside, and now

this larger world once again belongs to us.

I stand at the edge of it, beside the house,

listening to the stream we haven’t heard

since fall, and I imagine one day thinking

back to this hour and blaming myself

for my worries, my foolishness, today’s choices

having become the accomplished

facts of change, accepted

or forgotten. The woods are a mangle

of lines, yet delicate, yet precise,

when I take the time to look closely.

If I’m not happy it must be my own fault.

At the edge of the lawn my wife

bends down to uncover a flower, then another.

The first splurge of crocuses.

And for a moment the sweep and shudder

of the wind seems indistinguishable

from the steady furl of water

just beyond her.

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