It's Spring ... or, Is It Spring?
It's that time of year! Just before writing this column, I checked the long range weather forecast - 25 to 30 centimetres of snow on Saturday. On the other hand I heard crows the other day and a male Purple finch singing. We will know, by the time you read this, whether the forecast for (last) Saturday materialized, but one thing will remain certain whether it did or not: winter can still throw some mean curves our way. Still, the birds don't lie; they know that, sooner or later, things will get warmer and those early crows and finches will be joined by birds of other feathers.
This is also the time when the serious gardener begins to stir. there are seeds to order and transplants to start indoors. Time, too, to consider landscaping projects for the spring and to begin to dream of kayak trips on the river and hikes back into the woods without the encumbrances of skis or snowshoes. Today, March 21, is Spring Equinox - from now on until Summer Solstice the hours of daylight will increase and, slowly as it may be, so will the heat. And those in nature that rely on that heat will begin to stir.
This has been a strange winter. Indeed, until early January, it was hardly winter at all. That is why, at least in part, why we have so little snow on the ground right now. In a "normal" winter (so at least it seems so in my experience) we get plentiful snow in December and early January, before the cold of that month and February take over. Well, the cold did its thing - the stretch from mid January until early this month was as cold a one as we have seen in a long time. However, it has been raining since then, again in place of the usually heavy snows that we expect at this time of year (whatever happened on Saturday last notwithstanding).
For many people, of course, the absence of snow has been a blessing, or at least they so perceive it. They have not had to pay for ploughing or for fuel to run their own snowblowers. Getting around has been easier because there has been little ice, at least when the temperatures were warm enough to encourage people outside. But it has been my experience that most blessings in nature are of the mixed variety. I wonder how the scant snowfall of the winter will translate into water supplies this summer, especially if the spring is dry as well. And I do know that, for those of us who live in older houses, the absence of snow has meant a corresponding absence of natural insulation around our foundations and a corresponding increase in our winter heating bills. Conversely again, the steady hard cold could well have penetrated the ground cover that provides shelter for garden pests such as cutworms and slugs; we can fantasize, at least, that egg masses of those creatures may have been destroyed and we will experience a bit of relief from the plagues of the past few years.
Whatever may transpire, it will be interesting to watch and to experience.We approach each spring with optimism - perhaps this will be the summer that produces the best garden ever. We dream of endless days of bright morning sunshine that dries off the residue from the previous night's showers, followed by hot, indolent afternoons that are meant for reading and dozing in the hammock, and evenings that simply beg for kayak trips on the river, or simple contemplation of sunsets and emerging stars - before the next shower moves in to water the gardens - and sets things up for another perfect day to follow. Or, so we dream.
After all, it is those dreams that cause us to welcome the crows, the finches, and all the other harbingers of the changing of the season - for whatever they may bring.
