The geese are back!

This morning I heard, and saw, several Canada geese headed for the Carlos Avery Sunrise river pools. Spring is inching northward by the day. Here’s the report from the National Phenology Network as of today.

Spring Leaf Index Anomaly, 2/26/24

Snow showers are in the forecast for tomorrow and March 4, but we know snow on the ground won’t last long with the high temperatures we’re getting on the days between snow showers. If you think I’m being too optimistic, take a moment and read what Aldo Leopold has to say in A Sand County Almanac about "March: The Geese Return.” His shack was/is about two weeks of Spring south of us without accounting for the effects of climate weirding. Locally, waterfowl migration is one to two weeks behind 2017’s early arrival of open water and birds.

geese on open water: February 21, 2017

Photo by J. Harrington

In honor of the geese and today’s high temperatures approaching 60℉, I’m wearing a summer weight sweatshirt (no fleece lining). The ponds north of our property are thawing during the day and refreezing the nights that drop well below 32℉. Some day soon they won’t refreeze, at least for the next seven or eight months or so. It does feel strange writing about all this in February, though.

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.