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Signs of spring abound
. — Time to take a signs-of-spring walk.
First, though, to set the mood, this verse from Robert Frost’s Two Tramps in Mud Time.
The bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And fronts the wind to unruffle a plume
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake: and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color, he isn’t blue,
But he wouldn’t advise a thing to blossom.
Spring comes later in Frost’s New Hampshire, but it’s as tricky a thing there as here. While I was ruminating on this essay, spring jumped ahead and is now full-bore ON. Starting with tiny bluets (they call them “Quaker ladies” back East) and Johnny-Jump-Ups, spring progresses with more dandelions, henbit, and shepherd’s purse.
In town, the Bradford pears are in full bridal dress. This is their time to make up for hosting the starlings and grackles the rest of the year, and they make the best of it. Redbuds provide punctuation for the long white sentences of pear. The few remaining “real” fruit trees bloom less spectacularly, but in lovely shades of bright pink to nearly white.
Soft maples have bloomed their bright red, tiny flowers and are now emitting bundles of tiny pointed leaves. Sycamores haven’t even thought about leafing. In the country, ticks are out-and-about. Every winter we say that it is so cold, it will surely kill the ticks. Every spring, we know better.
Around the still-busy feeders, the birds are singing real songs, not just the twittery chirps that suffice them in winter. The woodpeckers that visited different feeders in the winter now arrive and depart together. A phoebe is singing his title song from the tip of the tallest elm behind the garage, and red-tailed hawks are feeding big gawky chicks on the tops of the power poles. Bluebirds, too, are singing territory songs, but not around the house, for they don’t come to seed feeders and are looking for just-the-right-hole in just-the-right location to begin laying eggs when the dogwoods bloom.
So, what better time can there be to round up a couple of friends, neighbors, or family members for a signs-of-spring walk? If possible, I like to take walks that include someone at least 20 years younger than I, and a child or two as well. With more than two children, they form a kid-pool that excludes adults. But a child who is open to input from the surroundings is a true joy. Only a 4-year-old could look at a street lined with Bradford pears and say “look, dandelion trees!” They see the little, the animated, and the unexpected far better than I. An earthworm out after hours is a small miracle. A lizard is beyond belief. But Grandma Nature can tell about the bird that is singing and the flower that will soon follow today’s tight buds.
Here in the country, a walk inside the fence at the Folley Farm is nearly a mile long, and provides excitement enough almost any day of the year. Sand plums are blooming on the hill while the yellow water-iris is still emerging from last year’s leaves down in the swamp. Peppermint striped Spring Beauty graces the edge of the driveway as soon as the morning sun wakens it.
Mosquitoes are not awake yet, making the wetter places even more attractive. There are funny fur-edged buds on the pawpaw tree and clumps of tiny yellow-green flowers on the spice bush. What is not blooming and budding is another story. You won’t catch buds swelling on the post oaks or blackjacks. Though I’ve seen them get frost-bitten before, it is rare for the oaks to lose any precious new leaves to the late frosts that we may get up into the middle of April. I’m torn between admiring the enthusiasm of the bluets and the conservative approach of the oaks. Both are part of spring in Oklahoma, and both are a part of the pleasure of living in a place with an interesting climate: varied, unpredictable, entertaining.
Pat Folley writes for The Norman (Okla.) Transcript and may be contacted at pfolley@ecewb.com.
