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From the ring of fragments clinging to the ponds edges it’s a tattered mess. A mess in springtime we never clean up. At first glance, its pretty ugly, dirty ice, muddy ice, cattail fronds bent every which way. The tawny tan heads torn shredded some with fluffy remains, but very few.
And each spring this most unwelcoming view to me, draws first, male redwing blackbirds, with their shrill arrival calls, red shoulder boards they spruce the place up quickly, wingedly jostle potential rivals, the ladies still at least two weeks prior to their arrival, but boy oh my the boys will be boys staking claims until then.
Until then.
Inches only out of the ground, tulips and crocus, pop’t up, and now have stalled. Stunned by the remaining frozenness about them, maybe sensing, um, just a bit premature, let’s set this a spell longer.
Swans winged over head now almost a week ago, headed north, to land on some frozen lake, why would one come so soon, its cold, not a drop of open water, and yet the swans so generous, such a choir from above, almost, not quite, heralding a spring.
Where last year’s mowed lawn meets this year’s pond edges and debris, the first robin of spring, a loner, male or female I know not, has taken to striding there, where the frost ain’t out of the wormless ground, yet the bird hops about. Why? And now it has been snowed upon twice. I think I’m not the only one wishing for an end to spring. - The Trout Whisperer
