Sometimes, when I don't watch closely, it seems that Spring disappears almost in secret. It's as though the transformation occurs in the middle of the night, and then when I wake up, it's June. The woods have all filled in. The number of leaves and flowers is uncountable. And it is strawberry time. And pie cherries and mulberries are getting ripe.
It is the time of daddy-longleg spiders. in the woods. Field-crickets have started to call. Grasshoppers have hatched, and they spin away as I walk the alley. Fireflies wander to mate in the night. The silver-spotted skipper butterflies and the fold-winged skippers appear in the garden.
They join the cabbage whites and the red admirals and orange polygonia butterflies. Fledglings haunt the undergrowth. Turtles are laying eggs.
And even though all these things are happening in present time around me, it's so easy to forget, and so easy to to look away. And if I DON'T pay attention, then when I DO, well then I wake up in a whole new TIME OF YEAR.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the fourth week of Early Summer. In the meantime, don't look away. Stay in the season around you.
