In like a Lion...

Happy March!  

I spent a lot of time looking down today on my walk.  There were several reasons for this.  First, it was extremely windy and also spitting rain.  Also, last nights torrential rains and thunderstorms left puddles to avoid and also WORMS! all over the pavement.  Definitely something to avoid, as a person.  I did enjoy watching 2 robins hop around and pick them up, though. 

Looking down, I got to see a lot of bulb plants poking their foliage up through the soil... The rounded still fingers of daffodil leaves, the wide pointy tulip leaves... Every yard has its signs of spring emerging.  Still, I was pretty surprised to see this actual purple crocus poking through!  (This same yard had many purple and a sprinkling of yellow crocuses, all in this stage of bloom.)

At one point when I did look up, I was taken by how much the aspen catkins had changed in the past few days -- and how wet and sorry they looked, like a soggy dog!

BTW... glad I got out for a little walk before this happened:

This was the afternoon view out my office window... thick, whirling, swirling snow.  I guess Baba Marta has some dirty carpets.  (Explanation: today at school we celebrated Baba Marta day, which is a Bulgarian holiday to welcome and encourage the start of spring.  Grandmother March is very temperamental and gets angry or sad and then happy as the March weather quickly changes.  We were told than when it snows in March, that's Baba Marta cleaning the dust out of her carpets.  We all learned something new today!)

Springing

Just yesterday, the alder catkins were tight brown clusters; today they're opening, revealing their inner green to the world.  It may still be winter, but right now, spring seems to be everywhere... the whole world is showing its inner green.  Yesterday... yesterday was one of those days when being outside, it seemed like it could cure anything.  Like it would have been impossible not to be invigorated, inspired, uplifted out there.  There were chorus frogs chorusing, the first time this spring I'd heard that song, interrupted by the distinct call of sandhill cranes.  And not from high above my head... cranes were calling from ground level, as though they've come back, settled in.  Even the prairie itself seemed to be ready to burst... below, an area that was burned in the fall has a faint green tinge to it.  Just a little color, peeking through, beneath the brown, telling us it won't be long now.  (Speaking of long... like my shadow?)

Also... last night's rain brought worms out from the saturated soil.  (I know, this one's dead, but t had to be alive to come out, right?)

The Last Flower

Witch Hazel -- known by some for its use in natural astringent products -- is known by me as the last flowering plant of the fall.  (It is also the first flowering plant in the spring... Hamamelis virginiana has these yellow flowers in late November-December, while Hamamelis vernalis, the vernal witch hazel, has orange blooms in late February-March.)  Though tiny, the flowers look very celebratory, brightly colored streamer petals unfurling from the center. 

So I'm starting to feel bad for these worms.  Last week they came out to escape the saturated ground, and many of them were caught still on the pavement when the snow event occurred.  I saw quite a few frozen worms left behind.  Then it warms, the snow melts, saturating the ground, it rains, leaving REALLY saturated ground, and the worms come out again... but it's December, and I feel like not a lot of good can happen to these worms.  Ah, well.  Best of luck to them. 

One of those Wormy Days

Today's steady rain has made today one of those wormy days, when you have to look everywhere you step to avoid not only puddles, but the worms that have come out of the soil to avoid the saturation. You'd think, on November 17, that the worms would be well out of sight in estivation... curled up in their mucus-coated caves deep below the frozen surface*... but you'd be wrong!  Hasn't been that cold, for that long,that the soil has gotten even a little bit frozen.  And so, a wormy day!

*so poetic, and yet... 

Wormy Day

Though we're into November and we'd expect the earth worms to be digging in and entering estivation some time soon, today's soil-saturating rain has them coming out!  Just like on a spring day, the sidewalk is covered with worms this morning.

One Warm Day...

... and things are popping up all over the place.
Daffodils in the yard, which may have even been there under the snow, became visible today.

Here is a baby columbine. The tiny buds on my Am. Hazel have started opening as well, but they are too tiny for me to photograph. Also, pick up a few of winter's decomposing leaves, and I found all sorts of squirmy life. Worms, centipedes, little roly polies, and some tiny white bugs are all active and plentiful under there...

Also heard, seen, or reported by a third party:

• killdeers, today.
• sandhill cranes, a few days ago, reported by fivecrows' father.
• a bat, reported by fivecrows,
  
• herons, seen by me today but earlier in the week by fivecrows,
  
• our porch raccoon is back to looking longingly (or with loathing, I'm not sure) into our window.
• cedar waxwings, also seen by fivecrows.
• it is very muddy!
  

Ice is still on the lakes, but there's a lot of melted water on top of it...

My Morning.

Despite my lovely poem, we awoke this morning to cold rain -- which the weather channel assured us would continue into tomorrow and mix with snow. As you can imagine, I was somewhat grumpy at this, knowing, as I did, that I would still be out this morning setting up the Earth Week scavenger hunt -- which many classes would probably not even do in this weather. And so, at 6:50 in the morning, I set off on my bicycle with the signs that I had carefully enclosed in zipper bags and my trusty clothespins. Riding a bicycle on a day like today means that not only was there water pouring down from the sky, but also splashing up, mixed with mud, from below. And that's being optimistic. I should probably say it was mixed with mud and worm guts, because there were so many worms seeking refuge from the deluge that the whole world smelled wormy. So I was grumpy. And muttering obscenities as I had to take my hood off (needed the peripheral vision, you see), exposing my head and neck to the water.

And then... and then things started to happen. I saw movement and slowed my riding. A coyote was walking across the trail. I stopped to hang a sign; she walked closer and closer to me. Finally, about 15 feet from where I stood, she froze and turned her head to look at me. I stared at her. She stared at me. We shared a moment between human and wildness. Finally, she turned and trotted on in her direction of travel and, having several more signs to hang, I rode on in mine.

A trickster in Native American mythology, and a bane on suburban existence, these

canines maybe get a bad reputation that they don't deserve. The are just like us, doing what they need to do to survive in a world that is changing fast. Everything, it seems, that does well with the changes we humans have made becomes a problem species for us. The tricksters are the only ones that can thrive. This coyote was not at all mangy looking; she was smallish, and fluffy and very healthy looking. She didn't seem like a pest, or a dog-killer or a baby-eater. And she opened my eyes to the world on a rainy morning.

Anyhow, the morning was transformed. What would happen next? I noticed ducks landing on the pond, their wings pointed down and showing their blues and whites, the water splashing and sparkling. Songbirds abounded. A red tailed hawk swooped down right in front of me -- I could see his orange tail and speckled belly, I could see the power in his wing stroke and the genius in his hollow-boned, aerodynamic design.

Magic. There is magic in everything. Beauty in every rainy grey day. Opportunity in every moment. Open your eyes and look.

Worms

Yesterday afternoon has made today a worm day.  One of those times when the saturated soil forces worms to come up and, misguidedly, seek escape on the sidewalks and roads.  Unfortunately, their "escape" often ends up being the final escape, either by means of drying up when the sunshine catches them unaware on a non-porous surface; or by bird.  That is what is happening this morning.  Robins are hopping around enjoying a free buffet of countless partially dehydrated, slow-moving annelids.  (Yum.)

Seeing this, and thinking about those lucky robins, made  me realize that worms are an unreported phenological sighting; I have overlooked these less romantic harbingers of spring.  They spend their winter six feet under... not dead, but in estivation.  They won't come back up in the spring until the soil reaches a temperature of at least 35 degrees (and some sources sat 40).  And of course warming soil also means other things can happen, like plants rooting and gardens being tilled.

Se we definitely saw worms over the weekend when we were working in the garden (that's Mar 21-22).  I can't recall if I had seen any previously; I'm going to have to call that event with inaccuracy.  Oh, well.  There are about a million things happening this time of year; no one can possibly catch all of them.  Most hit me on the head as phenologically important if I see them, but sometimes I don't feel the knock even when I've seen the event.  Or something like that. 

More weekend sightings that I didn't previously mentioned... a really cool centipede.  All the soil creepy crawlies seem to be out and about by now.  Also, there was a sprouted buckeye in the grass we dug up.  Which is odd, because I don't know of any buckeye trees nearby to have shed such a nut.  There are buckeyes in Grayslake, though, so for all I know there is one 3 doors down that I just never saw.  Anyhow, we transplanted it to a more suitable location and are hoping (against hope) for a baby buckeye in the future.