Meteorologists say it’s March 1, astronomers say it’s March 20. In Vermont, it’s when the crows come back. Or else when the maples put forth their buds and the sap run ends. You boil your last sap down, scour the pans and buckets, and forget the whole thing until February.
*Once upon a time in Rhode Island, the old folks told me long ago, they’d go arbutusing… searching the still-barren land for the early arbutus blossoms, pushing through the snow and the leaves.
*It’s not as elegant, but it also happens when the skunk cabbage rises from wet streaks in the still-frozen bogs. The willow shoots green up. The robins return. When I was young, it was new clothes for Easter. Nowadays it’s the Cadbury Eggs and peanut butter eggs in the store. For a century or more, it’s been the Burpee Seed Catalog in the mail.
*School kids swapped coats for jackets, put the sleds and skates away, and ferreted out the softball bats. The calendar became a matter of intense interest, because summer suddenly didn’t seem too far away.
*Walt Whitman said that to him, ever-returning spring meant “scent of lilac, lowering star in the west, and thought of him I love.” In Bible days, it was the time when kings go forth to war, but it was also the time when the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land.
*Chaucer heard the birds of “Aprille” too… the smale foweles maken melodye.” Today we rejoice when we see our first robin.
*When I was a kid, it was time to gather some early blooms, and hang a May basket on someone’s door.
*What (and when) is spring to us, here in the southern Finger Lakes as we approach the third decade of the 20th century?
*When my wife walks or drives on Haverling Street and County Road 13, she knows every bed of bulbs for a mile or so out past the Bath village limits. Snowdrops, crocuses, tulips and irises come in on different schedules, so spring unfolds for her like page after page of a book.
*Spring to our cat is the time when the windows come open again, and STAY open pretty consistently, at least until the sun goes down. And through those open windows, both he and we hear the spring peepers in the little pond across the road.
*For me, spring means that Mossy Bank Park overlooking Bath opens its gate again, and the eagles return to their nest. Round-lobed hepatica appears on the Finger Lakes Trail, and trout lily later on. Soon the Canada goose couples will lead forth lines of goslings. Juncos shift to elevations that are higher, even if only by a few yards. If you live in the countryside you take down the bird feeders, for a bird feeder is also a bear feeder.
*One day, the world has butterflies again.
*In Hammondsport, Penn Yan, and Watkins Glen, visitors will take seats at sidewalk tables. *When the snow and ice are gone from the shaded clefts, Watkins Glen State Park will open the trails again. Youth groups and others will start laying plans to build floats for the Dairy Parade. Choirs practice Easter anthems. Those who observe the solemn season of Lent see it coming to a close, ushering in a season of joy.
*Disc golfers make their way around the course at Hickory Hill Camping Resort, scraping the rust from skills that have lain unused through the long winter. Orion sinks lower, the Summer Triangle creeps up higher. Spring has come.