In this week's episode, notes from Bill Felker's 40 years of observing what happens in nature.
Bill Felker: This is Bill Felker with Poor Will's Almanack for the fifth week of early spring, the third week of the Robin chorus moon, the week of spring equinox, and the sun's entry into Aries.
The exact end of winter came well before the most recent thaws, arriving unseen in the coldest weeks of the year when flower bulbs and buds followed their own schedules and began to show beneath and above the snow.
Walking through town this morning, I found that some daffodils were budding, and a few tulips and hyacinths were 4 or 5in tall. Snowdrops, snow crocus, and aconites were already in late bloom, some even well past their prime.
Lilac buds swollen fat and gold. Pussy willow catkins were all open.
Of course, spring is as much a state of mind as it is a state of nature. The beauty of a seasonal inventory is that there is never a correct number of things to find. The end of winter always appears in the eye of the beholder, and it happens in the one sure scent or sight or sound that tips the scales of private time. Each person encounters that pivotal event at a different moment and in a different way. Whenever that realization does occur, then the entire scaffolding of the winter collapses, and all the pieces of the New Year take on meaning as they fall into place. And then suddenly it's spring.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will's Almanack. I'll be back again next week with notes for the final week of early spring. In the meantime, you just wait. If it hasn't happened to you yet, it's going to happen to you soon. Suddenly.
Bill Felker contributes to newspapers nationwide, including the "Yellow Springs News." Bill resides in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Poor Will's Almanack is brought to you by Tree Care Inc., offering services in arboriculture throughout the region. Trees make life better.
