Spring arrives in stuttersteps

A pathetic robin skittered across the snow-covered yard this morning, wondering how to find a worm under the snow. The dame’s rocket leaves we noticed greening the ground in the woods yesterday are now under a layer of snow. We’re still trying to figure out how to adapt or adjust to weather conditions that go from snow too deep to look for skunk cabbage to temperatures to hot to look for skunk cabbage and back to snow cover again, all in less than a week. Give us a couple of months and we’ll probably be complaining about the heat again, but by then it will be seasonal.

It looks as though we may get away with letting Mother Nature clean up her own mess this time. Roads are in decent shape so far. The driveway’s easily passible and doesn’t need clearing. Unless we get a lot more snow overnight, locally we seem to have dodged this bullet. Meanwhile, water is way up almost everywhere locally and there are more flocks of coots in the local marshes than I think I’ve seen ever before at one time, but perhaps not. We did finally see a red-winged blackbird.

many trees are starting to look like this

Photo by J. Harrington

This is the week we're going to ease into Spring. There's rain in the forecast but we've got boots and a rain jacket. There's lots of tidying to be done after winter's winds and storms. The dogs can get to run around in their run again. I think I need to shop for a few more "gopher” traps before we get overrun or undermined. Driving home from a visit with our son, we noticed lots of trees, especially poplars, have budburst, the beginning of leaf out, and or catkins. We’re going to act as though spring is finally here to stay, regardless of the current snow showers or any that pop up in the forecast. Wasn’t it one of the romantic poets who claimed “If Spring is here, can Winter be far behind?” or something like that?

Morning Warming

By Joyce Sidman

sun

sunwarm

sunwarm on back

sunwarm on back legs

sunwarm on back legs loosens

            my heart

            my heart beats

            my heart beats faster

            in sunwarm my heart beats faster

                        I flex

                        I flex legs

                        I flex legs loose with sunwarm

                        I drink dew from dripping leaves

                        I beat

                                    flex

                                                crouch

                        leap!

 

                                                What am I?  

(grasshopper)

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