Early Signs of Spring and Memories

March is ending with April just on the horizon.  The snow once covering Prospect Gardens has almost all disappeared except for a few patches in shaded areas.  I surveyed the Gardens and planned the first project. Last season we never fully conquered the Bishop's Weed with their roots burrowing down underneath the rocks.  Plans call for removing the rocks, filling in the space with dirt and planting grasses and prairie plants. The plants are on order through a Dane County program that provides prairies plants for public spaces at $2.25 a plant, which is quite a saving.  Pickup is scheduled for Saturday, May 19th.

Our first work session of the new season will be April 21st from 9 to noon.  Come join us if you are in the Madison area. In the meantime, spring is emerging. This week during my daily walks, I looked  for signs of spring and especially plants as I meandered through my neighborhood.  I now recall a similar class assignment when I was a youngster attending Polandi, the one room schoolhouse located about a mile across the fields from our family farm.  As instructed by our teacher, we documented early signs of spring, along with a few sentences. Robins and Red Wing Blackbirds were one of the first birds to arrive followed later by the  piercing calls of the Killdear.  These were on my list. The Red Wing Blackbirds darted at our heads as we walked through the swamp bordering the mile long dead-end dirt road leading to the farm. The Killdear zipped across the dirt road as it crossed higher sections of land.

By this time of spring, the road was often impassable because the disappearing frost in the frozen earth turned what was once solid ground into mud. Some seasons the road was so bad that we parked the car at the end of  the road and walked home. One time my sister Barbara mistakenly thought she could  drive through the ruts. We pulled our car out with a tractor.

Before I share my 2018 list of early signs of spring, here are two poems about the season.  My list has no examples from Prospect Gardens.  There are tiny green shoots close to the soil and I could not clearly capture these with my IPhone camera.

Early Spring: Rainer Maria Rilke

Harshness vanished. A sudden softness

has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.

Little rivulets of water changed

their singing accents. Tendernesses, 

hesitantly, reach toward the earth

from space, and country lanes are showing

these unexpected subtle risings

that find expression in the empty trees.

Spring: Archie Greenidge

Spring is life 

Spring is hope 

So is love and 

happiness. 

Spring renews. 

Without spring, 

life is forlorn. 

Spring is nostalgia 

after bitter storm. 

Put spring in your heart 

Here are my eight examples of early spring.  May they put spring in your heart. 

 Tulips poking through the dark earth with a few brown leaves of fall waiting for their demise. These are from a neighbor's front yard.

 A neighbor's colorful laundry on a warm sunny day.  My mother did the same and sometimes in the middle of winter  when the sun was warm.  She used a wringer washer and during the summer would wash clothes on the front porch.  Occasionally and before I was assigned field work, I helped; fishing out the clothes from the galvanized steal tubs with a well worn wooden stick and directing the clothes into the wringer. 

My older sister Jenny recalled my mother's first gas motor driven wash machine.  After seeing the machine in the hardware store in nearby Pulaski, the store's owner came with the machine to our farm and demonstrated how to use the machine. Impressed my Mother, and my Father purchased it.

 Oh! Exquisite crocuses making their entrance against the remnants of fall.  These were spotted along the bike path west of Prospect Gardens.

 A patch of delicate lavender crocuses welcoming the early spring. These were on a protected side of a  neighbor's house.

 Here's a patch of snowdrops accompanied by a few crocuses from a neighbor's yard. Snowdrops are one of the first spring flowers. In past years, I have seen snowdrops poking through a thin sheet of snow.

 The waters of nearby Lake Wingra, just across the street from our apartment building, are free of ice. The piers and docks are still in storage.

 Pictured here are two staff of the University of Wisconsin Arboretum doing a prescribed burn.  Each year, mimicking Mother Nature's wild fires, prairie burns are done to help control disease and weeds.

Here is Mother Buffalo from the adjoining neighborhood of Midvale, a short bike ride from our apartment. This year she is disguised as the Easter Bunny while last Easter season she wore a fancy bonnet.  

This concludes my list of early signs of spring. More signs of spring are sure to arise. May this season of renewal surround you with loving kindness and fill you with life and hope.