Each spring the song of the universe begins again - Winton Southern
...and again, and again....Spring, under the best of circumstances, is a fits-and-starts affair, but I still appreciate April in all its messy ambiguity. Owing, perhaps, to global forces we'd rather not consider, we previewed spring in January with more than the usual glimpse of pussy willows. Cardinals dazzled a friend by paying a visit to her bird feeder--a stunning event in this area. Not to be outdone, another friend reported three misguided robins probing the freshly-thawed turf along a roadside. We considered knitting tiny caps and scarves to fortify the robins against the inevitable return to winter.
Now we trust the signals we receive and accept minor setbacks with equanimity. A heron flies over our ice-jumbled lake and comments at some length. His croaks, melodious to winter-weary ears, presage ice-out and the arrival of loons, thunderstorms and crocuses. After months of muted grays and browns, we are ready for color and drama. Pulling on an old pair of boots, I crunch through patches of snow on north-facing slopes and slog through muck at pond's edge to see what price winter has exacted. I mentally tally the chores ahead of us and smile. Only in April would I relish the prospect of picking up deadfall and cleaning up after Big Bertha, the wild turkey that amused us so during the post-holiday doldrums. Assessing the contributions of the five deer that trailed through our yard all winter, my husband brings out his shop vacuum and a long extension cord to remove their droppings. A steady rain washes away the last traces of snow mold and cleans the canvas for this year's landscape.
Unfortunately, the next walk tells us why a red fox had been so vigilant last winter. Mice and voles must have busied themselves for months in their network of snow tunnels from one apple tree to the next throughout our little orchard. We imagine them cursing at the hardware cloth surrounding several trees and exulting when they found the ones we didn't get to. Ever the optimist, I refuse to accept the prospect that the girdled trees are lost even as I realize that their swelling buds can deceive.
Temperatures have climbed enough to warrant moving my collection of rosemary plants back outside. Cooped up all winter with too little sun and too many indoor scourges, they are a ragtag lot. I've learned to give them a chance outside before passing judgment. While I may lose one or two, the rest respond enthusiastically to fresh air and sunshine. I've known them all since they were wee cuttings, and I love them for their piney fragrance, their dainty blooms in fetching shades of blue and lavender, and their gnarly shapes. Bearing little strings of white lights through the dead of winter to cheer the kitchen, the plants deserve all the pampering I lavish on them now. Soon the rosemary colony will be complemented by a cluster of ivies on the north porch where they too will recover from the dim, dry winter and slowly unfurl their fresh new leaves
On mid-April drives we scan cattails and willows for the first sighting of redwing blackbirds. They're back! While we, and perhaps they, know that April could still pitch a fit, we'll cheerfully stay the course. A snow squall may flatten crocuses and dollop the bird feeder, but winter has clearly lost its grip. The focus of chores shifts, over the next few days, from clean-up to routine maintenance. Longer days offer us plenty of time after supper to stroll favorite paths and listen to pond creatures tune up for their evening concert. Working its way from treetops to cattails, meadow to bog, and out onto our little lake, the song of the universe grows more insistent and expressive with each new voice and every passing day. Welcome back, April!
