Today is warm and raining. I’m watching some of the most stubborn piles of snow shrink, revealing bits of trash, sand, leaves, and dirt. It’s a dreary sort of in-between day where it feels like early spring but looks like all the depressing aspects of winter glommed together. I’m staring out the window hoping some bright yellow-green sprout will catch my eye, but nothing yet.
However, spring will creep in; if I’m not paying attention, then one day I will look out the window and marvel that it is “suddenly” spring. Instead, I am making it my goal to notice the small, slow steps toward spring because if the weather continues to melt the snow and soften the ground in a few weeks the yellow-spotted salamanders will move toward their vernal pools and flail about “congressing” to attract the females and the wood frogs will start their quacking mating calls.
I am tempted to rush things along and bring in a branch from the dogwood in the front yard and force it to bloom. Read more … By the time the buds open, spring will be here. Forcing the buds on a branch to bloom is easy enough and a fun project for a parent or a teacher to do with their children. Once you clip the branch and bring it inside you don’t have to do much else besides continue to add water to the jar or vase.
You don’t get instant gratification, this takes a while. You can also select a spot at home where you remember crocuses or daffodils or snowdrops appearing and stop at that spot each day. This takes seconds to do with children and when you see the green poking up through the mud, it seems like magic.
Now, you may be used to walking by a spot and saying, “Oh, look at the flowers starting to come up.” However, if they are already there, the delight of watching mud reveal its secrets doesn’t happen. Exploring nature doesn’t have to take a lot of time; but, it does sometimes require the conscious effort to be astonished.
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