Signs of the Season: Spring - School of the Seasons

February 1 is the beginning of Spring according to the Celtic calendar.

What are the signs of Spring where you live? Write us and we'll post your answers here.

March 3, 2008
Natalka in Kalamazoo, Michigan writes:

I've written to you before, I believe last year? When I was in Arizona, mentioning the yellow flowers of spring — in AZ it was acacia, and I remembered in MI it's forsythia. Well, I have been watching the outdoors, as I am on a sabbatical in MI, at my folks' house, since last summer, with a month back to AZ around Hallows...talk about yer slow time!...very nice! and go for walks and jogs when the weather accomodates here in Kalamazoo. Apparently, this year there is a lot of snow, so everyone says, like there was in winters of my growing up here.

So far, lots of shoveling, and then the odd melty, rainy and foggy gray day, followed by showers of fat white snowflakes on other days. A sign of spring yesterday was that the icicles "forked" into 4 tines, and then melted completely away. A sign of spring today was the bunch of daffodils (I don't know where they were grown) we bought to chase the grays away, and the fall-planted bulbs poking through in the front of the flower bed. Also, cardinals, bluejays, a downy woodpecker, feeding the dozen white-tailed deer, and seeing grass peek through the melt.

However, like the groundhog, I believe we will have AT LEAST another 6 weeks of winter, which I am enjoying (all the locals were expressing disgust a few weeks ago, but my birthday is a few days after Imbolc/Candlemas, and ends my busy holiday season (from Samhain and Dia de los Muertos) through Valentine) and I have missed the 4th season, living in AZ, so of MI I have no complaints. I also started making pysanky (as I am a Ukrainian gurl...and am going to check out your rite involving same, when I find a bit of time), and am going to start planting my peas, sweetpeas, and lettuces, in flats, and bulbs for forcing soon. Another sign of spring: my mother was online (only once every 3 months or so) buying a plane ticket, to visit her mother, who will be 99 on 3-20-08.

I also joined Project Budburst...so will keep you updated on that. Currently, many of the trees are in bud, some slender, some fat, some light spring green, some deep forest...have a happy March!

February 21, 2008
Monica in Lascassas, Tennessee writes:

Here in Middle Tennessee for the last week or so my crocuses are up as well as the smaller daffodils that they call "buttercups" in this area. And for two of the last three nights I heard the first frogs in the creek across the road. Temperature's been crazy high in the sixties some days and only the low forties others, so we still have a little more time before Spring is in full swing!

February 20, 2008
Riognach in Long Island writes:

Pisces! An eclipse of the moon in Virgo! And snow crocus! This afternoon three chrome yellow buds lifting to the cold air, awakened after a balmy mid-sixties temperatures of yesterday. Today Long island is frosty again. We can see our breath, there is ice on the rock jetty at the beach, the wind penetrates winter gear

Yet here is the promise: 3 golden flowers, and more of their needle green leaves pricking through the dead dry detritus of late February. It is enough. It may snow this week; indeed flurries are promised tonight, although the sky cleared enough to see the red moon as the shadow of our planet passes her face. The flowers are the hope and the promise that more clement times are to come, and it is enough.

February 17, 2008
Martha in Seattle writes:

This weekend was one of the first sunny weekends I can remember in a long, long time in Seattle. I saw pussy willows out in Magnuson Park and my crocuses were blooming for the first time. Still no sign of my fragrant violets, which come out the early spring. The frog pond at the Arboretum is still brown and wintery. But the days are getting longer.

I don't know if this is a sign of spring, but we had an amazing halo around the moon last night. The circle of the halo was huge.

February 11, 2008
Mary Wallace of Sour Lake, Texas writes:

Here in the far southeast corner of Texas we are having cold rainy days in the 40s interspersed with dry sunny ones when the temps climb into the 60s and even 70s but drop back in to the 30s at night.

Signs of Spring? Several varieties of azaleas have already been blooming for a couple of weeks, the quince has been in full flower for a month, and the paperwhite narcissus are in full bloom. Also, my potted rosemary has put out little purple flowers, something I have never seen before. My camellia Susquehanna always blooms in late February, and the buds are swelling now. The little pink dwarf camellia bloomed in January. Buds are also swelling on the native dogwood and redbuds.

Sweet flag and early Louisiana iris shoots are poking up through the brown leaves and pine straw. Little pink blossoms of shamrock (oxalis) abound; the big fat milkweeds and dandelions are emerging too. Green clover covers the brown grass, and in places it is blooming too. The winter rains have driven the ants above ground; huge mounds abound.

Meanwhile the last red leaves still cling to the wild blackberry canes, and
seed pods of the crape myrtles also cling. Striking bright red berries adorn the Nandina, Savannah holly, and yaupon holly. The berries on the "Pride of Houston" yaupon look translucent when the sun strikes them; they seem to glow with an inner fire.

Cardinals, bluejays, woodpeckers, chickadees and Tufted Titmice feast on the seeds and berries and vie for the bird feeder. I hear the noisy grackles touring the neighborhood and the raucous cry of the red-tailed hawks and crows.

It could freeze again sometime in the next couple of weeks, but after that Spring will be here for sure.