Late last night, early this morning, a golden crescent moon rose behind the bare branches of the neighbor’s trees. It was one of the prettiest sights until sunrise showed the frost coated neighborhood. There was little, if any, hoar frost but lots of standard issue frost. The dogs didn’t seem too impressed as we took our walks, but I was.
As I’ve alluded to in recent posts, it’s challenging to look forward to much with the weather as anomalous as it’s been. On the other hand, I’m finally beginning to treat it as good training for living in and appreciating, as much as possible, the moment. Without naming names, some of us have been noted to spend lots of time focused on everything and anything but the here and now. All told, it seems the most hopeful approach will be to consider the next six to eight weeks as an extended March, with its typical mix of crazy weather shifts. In fact, sometime this week I’m going to collect some dogwood stems and try forcing them to leaf out about a month earlier than we’ve done in years past.
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| forcing dogwood leafout
Photo by J. Harrington
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The Sunrise river is, in part, open water again, for the third or fourth time this winter. We drove over the Mississippi today, north of Minneapolis, it looked to be mostly open. I have no idea when lakes may experience ice out or how that may, or may not, relate to fishing openers. Nor have I taken a look at the National Phenology Network’s Status of Spring, but you can bet I’ll be checking regularly from now on.
My interest in phenology seems to wax and wane. This year it’s waxing and I’ll see if I can get it to stabilize at a higher than normal level.
Instructions on Not Giving Up
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.
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