Abracadabra and the ice is gone!
Sunshine and spring bring out the best in everyone.
-Kenney Chesney
Finally! A shirtsleeve weather day. The ground is still a bit wet from the melting ice and there’s water running in the drainage ditches, but it isn’t muddy in most places. Waldo can always find wet grass to roll in, or damp weed stalks to walk under, that will leave him a bit dewy, but I’m dry. It’s partly cloudy and there is only a slight breeze. The sun is shining brightly between white puffs of cloud and, if it weren’t for the lack of any leaves on the barren branches and the fact the temperature is only in the low sixties, I could almost believe that we were well into spring. But we aren’t quite there yet. Nope, we’re walking in an unusually warm day, but still in winter, without the snow, ice and cold. With the clearing skies and bright sun, though, much of the gray bleakness is gone.
The buds on branches and weed stalks are getting bigger and I can almost convince myself that they’re tightly rolled up tiny little leaves begging to be set free. The grass is still yellowish and the Japanese knotweed hasn’t yet started to sprout. The weeds that grow thickly next to the trail are all still dried-up straw-colored stems. Now that the ice is gone, moss and liverwort appear alongside the trail, but not in the thick carpet that’s there in warmer, wetter months. There ought to be a term for this weather, like the “Indian summer” of fall, but if there is one, I don’t know it.
Most of the migrating birds haven’t made it up from the south yet. I can’t hear any Emmy birds yet. They don’t usually show up until late spring, but with global warming, who knows how that will change. There are ubiquitous crows cawing about and I see, once in a while, something that looks a lot like a pigeon. Today, I’m bathed in more birdsong than for the past months and I do recognize some new tunes that I only hear in the warmer seasons. The little sparrows that flit about bushes in hordes are not here yet and I haven’t yet seen a cardinal or bluejay. I have heard the occasional woodpecker hammering away on a tree trunk, though.
Today, Waldo and I are walking down the trail, Waldo out in front at the end of his leash, and out of the corner of my eye, I see two red-tailed squirrels dash toward the path from my left. Squirrels, this time of year, frequently seem to be cavorting in pairs. Maybe it’s some kind of mating ritual? Anyway, the lead squirrel passes right in front of Waldo, missing him by inches. The one behind goes into a four-footed slide, barely misses running into Waldo’s left front leg, reverses course and rushes back into the pile of leaves it came from. The one that made it past Waldo vanishes into a pile of leaves on the right side of the trail. I’m impressed that they seem so comfortable about us being in their path that they would even attempt such a feat. Or, maybe, they were so intent in their game that the rest of the world doesn’t exist? Even more impressive is the fact that Waldo doesn’t react at all! Not a pause in his gait, not a turn of his head, not even something I would recognize as a “whatever” reaction. Nothing. And they are squirrels! What is caninity coming to?
We pass by the new park the city is putting in over an old trash dump. They seeded grass on it last fall in places, but not everywhere. The ground has been leveled off, except for some small, brown, clumpy mounds in the middle. I don’t know why they didn’t seed the whole thing and left half of it for spring, but I don’t see anything in the forecast that would prevent them from finishing the job now. The snow and ice are gone; there are no hard freezes in the foreseeable future. Come on, guys, let’s get on with it! Waldo and I need some open spaces to play in! As it is, it’s going to be fall before the grass has established itself well enough to allow the public to use it.
Here and there, I am beginning to see what looks like little sprigs of garlic mustard poking their way through the dirt, but they are small and scattered. There are places where the knotweed doesn’t grow and the ground, at least this early in the year, is open to sunlight. I wonder how much work it would be to scatter some wildflower seeds there, to see if they would take root. How nice it would be to walk through patches of perennial multicolored blossoms! We have the Covid garden, but wouldn’t it be great to pass alongside swaths of brightly colored flowers, at least at some times of the year.
Well, that’s how things stand so far. Mother Nature is, slowly, waking up and the season is progressing towards warmth and vivacious beauty.
And the ice is gone!
What a nice day for a walk!