The Saturday of Spring

You know it's been a rough spring when your baseball team is 10-4 and you haven't watched a single inning, haven't looked at a single box score, don't know who's new on the roster, couldn't name three players still on the team with any conviction at all.

Such has my spring been. The grass in the back yard--did I say grass? I meant clover--is mid-calf. The squash I planted in the greenhouse has grown to monstrous proportions, and yet I haven't started peppers. I haven't mended the garden fence, which I destroyed after seeing deer in the yard. I haven't even bought the supplies to do it.

Ironically, part of the blame falls to baseball. I have two boys now in the littlest leagues, one still hitting off a tee and daydreaming on the infield, and the other hitting real pitches hard (sometimes) and trying his darnedest to throw like a man. Fabulous quantities of practices so far, with the game schedule creeping inexorably toward us. If you've been there, you know. I won't see a clear Saturday until June.

Ah, Saturday. You my lost friend. Leisurely time to mow the lawn, mend the fence, hack at old tree stumps, light a pipe, whittle, toss a ball … Will I never know you again? The quiet Saturday of Spring, the dull chatter of baseball announcers, the hum of the crowd in the background, the exaggerated crack of the ball in the mitt or on the bat, the roar of the Fenway faithful as the ball soars out toward the Green Monster.

So that's what I'm missing. Time to kill. The leisure of a game that says, "Hey you! Slow down and watch this pitch. Nothing may happen. Or everything may happen. And there will be three hundred of these pitches today, over the next three hours. And you will watch every one of them. And feel not one ounce of guilt."

As I said, it's been a tough Spring.

Spring Flowers are Not Delicate

Photo credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nino_Barbieri

Daffodils. Forsythia. Their names suggest freshness and delicacy. They come, tender and yellow and lovely, out of the soil or from old stalks, when the air warms up. One is tempted to think they are weak in their fragile courage. After all, doesn't the summer heat scare them away?

This year, when the weather has been halting between extremes, this lesson has come home to me: these flowers are anything but fragile. Two days ago it was 30 degrees. I, softened by the warm weather and too many years in this temperate climate, could hardly stand the sharp wind. My winter coat was at the dry-cleaners and I had only a thin jacket to keep off the cold. A couple of hours out of doors without sunshine and I was miserable. The daffodils … they suffered too. They looked droopy, their yellow heads hung down, and I thought they were doomed. But come a little warm sun and they perked up again. They're bright and healthy today again.

The tiny yellow forsythia blossoms, so delicate they seem to be made of butterfly wings, should be dead, too, by my logic. It's frosted the windshield more than once since they made their appearance on those old bare stalks. And yet here they were again today, looking unfazed by the weather's whims.

I could go on. Other people probably have known this all along. I'm sure there's some perfectly logical, ecological explanation for all this. The flowers have adapted for this cold weather; they're able to endure swings of temperature common to springs the world over. They have to be or they wouldn't have survived. Yes, yes, of course, all that must be true. And yet, in some fundamental way, I mistook delicacy of beauty for delicacy of constitution. No doubt men (like me) have been doing this for endless ages. And so I register my fault.

But even more, since in the rhythm of nature I experience spring as a dawning of hope, a promise of newness after the barren winter, I take a lot of solace from those resilient blooms.

No, spring flowers are not delicate. They are as tough as an old tree. And so is their promise.

I'm not the only one thinking about this:
The daffodil: a hardy bloomer, heralding spring

Border Crossing

This week a one-antlered buck stood on my leaf pile, surveying the yard. Three does were with him, munching on my lawn. The eldest curled herself up by the fence. The younger ones ranged around her, one by the bird bath, chewing endlessly on a tuft of grass; the other worked her way from the bare-limbed pear tree to the ivy at the edge between my yard and my neighbors', where she, like her mother or sister, nested in the shade.

I went away, changed clothes, did something or other. And after a while I came back and they were all gone. At least I know now, I thought, why my garden fence is in such disrepair. I know what happened to that parsnip I planted in the fall. I know what the coyotes are yowling at outside my study window after the moon has risen.

It's nice to know.

This year, I'm told, was the warmest in 4000 years. It hasn't been this warm since before Moses walked up Sinai into the cloud that had led his people through the wilderness. Those were days when a pillar of fire led the people by night. But it wasn't as hot as it is now. In the decades to come, say the scientists, it'll peak record temperatures since the last ice age. Which is to say, I'm guessing, since as long as we can tell. I have the feeling, the suspicion, that the last ice age is the limit of our meteorological knowledge. What they're telling us, maybe, is that earth has never been hotter than it's going to get, at least since human life has been here.

Meanwhile, a family of deer have camped in my yard. I don't have much hope for my garden, though I'll try. I'll do my best. And I'll keep my kids indoors at night in case of coyotes.

But it seems odd that the turning of the climate should coincide with the renewal of wildlife in my neighborhood. It seems like this apocalyptic turning should be dire, and I have no doubt it eventually could (and maybe will) be. But just now, it seems only like the first harbingers have crossed back from the wild into unfamiliar places. And it's hard not to welcome them, in spite of my garden.

Winter's Long Fingers

Since last weekend, when I declared the end of Winter and welcomed the beginning of Spring, my faith has been tested.

Monday came chill, and the week unfolded colder and colder by degrees. Sleet tapped at our metal roof, and on the way to town, we saw bare tree branches dressed out in thin layers of ice. Lovely, true; but ever so cold, that damp kind of cold that is winter here in North Carolina.

Yesterday, meager clusters of snowflake fell to the wet ground. By afternoon, I was playing baseball with the boys in the yard, pitting the sunshine against a stiff breeze.

Today, seven days later, the temperature is hovering beneath freezing. And snow is in the forecast for Wednesday. And what will I do? Nothing in me, or the daffodils pushing through the ground, wishes to yield quarter to Old Man Winter. Lovely as his painted trees and delicately engraved flakes are, his time is coming to an end. What will I do? Find the good in a longer winter? Yes, I could do that. Forestall my eagerness for spring? I could try. Admit that I was too eager ... that I was wrong to welcome Spring? I could, but I won't. The birdsong won't allow for it.

I know what I'll do. I'll begin planning my garden. I'll take out the small, portable greenhouse and set it up indoors. I'll plant seeds in peat-pots. I'll mend the garden fence. I'll begin hauling the compost to the beds. I'll plant some hardy crop, and watch it grow--maybe broccoli, for once. Then, when Old Man Winter withdraws his long, cold fingers, I won't be caught unprepared.

The First Day of Spring came in February

Calendars notwithstanding, today was the first day of Spring.

Proof:

• my son found a flower growing in the yard
• I went on a bike ride with my son
• I was hoeing in my garden, and red potatoes I had planted in the Fall came out, like little eggs given to us by the Easter Bunny
• I grilled hamburgers for lunch (check and mate!)

Most of all: I wanted it to be Spring. And so did my sons, and my wife, and the birds, especially the one that sang outside my bathroom window this morning. Him especially. He was dying for Spring to be here. No, not dying. He was announcing its arrival.

One must always listen to birds in these matters. They know.

So Happy Spring, if you're lucky enough to live where it came today. And if not, if you're still in winter, hold on. Your hope is soon to be rewarded. Or if you're in summer, rejoice with me, because today Spring came.

It's here. Everything is new again. Bright with promise. And the garden awaits me, its soil dark and damp. Life will come up through the earth, weeds will sprout, trees will bud, birds will ta-ta-tap at my house, bees will eat holes in my porch ... All this is upon me. And this week, with any luck, I'll get the first seeds into the potting soil, and I'll start my plans, ever elaborate and full of schemes, ever derailed by life and accidental seedling deaths -- but not yet. Today all is fresh and green and blooming in my mind. The broken-down garden fence calls to me, pushing aside the last of my winter chores. The rain gutters need my care. My bicycle chain needs oil. My legs need stretching. I'm dreaming of hiking in the woods. I'm gazing at this and that, thinking of paint and hammer and nails. I'm a homeowner astir. I'm a beaver come out of the winter chill.

Yes, Spring is here. I know it in my bones.