It's a Small World

Yesterday was a still, grey day at the beach, slate water blending almost invisibly into cloud-covered sky. These formations are what remains of winter's icy covering. Fragile though they may seem, they are solid sheets of ice, and, though they were dripping steadily in the 40 degree weather, no amount of kicking or jumping on would break these sand-infused ice overhangs. They looked like mini natural wonders of the world, places where centimeter-tall ancient cliff-dwellers could have made homes. There were caves where tiny spelunkers could study ice stalactites or mine for precious pebbles. It's funny to think that yesterday they probably looked totally different, and tomorrow they will look different still. And before too long they will be piles of sand and then waves will smooth them over and if we hadn't seen them, we'd never know they were there. It makes you feel lucky, sometimes, to be in the right place at the right time to see things that so many others completely miss. In all the years and all the days, of all the places, there could only have been this one moment when I could see this thing... But it also makes me wonder how many millions of cool things I was one day too late or too early to experience, or what was just around the bend that I didn't see. I suppose that's a depressing take on it, and I should go back to being lucky that I was in the right place at the right time, no?

Slushy Snow Walk

In addition to red wing blackbirds descending in droves, here are some of yesterday's discoveries:

Fallen sticks imprinted into the snow, only appearing from the over-head vantage point.

Deer track.

Colorful fungi bands, green moss... you can almost imagine it's not winter.
Someone's a messy eater.
Two someones, actually...
(I even saw a pair of mallards, but they are not pictured here.)
A spot of green grass. Yeah, I know it's last year's green grass. But it's still green.
Geese directly overhead.

Worth a Thousand Words

The Results

Our search for signs of spring did not, today, yield a red-wing blackbird (although many starlings tried to fool me). But we did find this fellow on the snow. He's curled up there as a result of many kindergarten fingers poking at him (you would, too...) but the caterpillar was definitely alive and moving. I don't know what kind it is or how it spends its winters, but we've optimistically decided it's a sign of spring.

We also saw a V-flock of geese migrating north and robins (which used to be the harbinger of spring but now, well...).

Back in winter world, the melting and refreezing made some really neat ice structures last night.

Searching for Signs

Some human phenology... yesterday, I drove home with my window open. It wasn't actually that warm out, but my car had been acting as a solar collector all day, and I was wearing my winter down coat. So with that combination, I was quite hot sitting in the car and decided to let in some cool air until I felt better -- and ended up driving all the way home with my window about 6 inches down. Well, don't ask me why my brain works this way, but as I was driving that way, I started wondering if all the people passing me (I was moving rather slowly due to traffic) would think I was crazy for having my window open, or a smoker, which is usually why people open their windows in the winter. And so I started looking... and everyone had their windows open! Probably 8 or 9 cars out of every 10 had drivers who were enjoying the fresh air. And I doubt all of them were smoking. So that's a sign of spring, right there.

This morning is bright and frosty (everything is sparkly and white). I will bundle up and head out to look for early signs of spring with my kindergarten students... although I admit that the idea behind this hunt is that the first time we do it -- today -- we find mostly signs of winter and then gradually over the next month they look again and see more signs of spring each time... still, we might find something today that means spring is on the way. (RWBB time??? Anyone seen them yet???)

Warm-up.

It's starting to feel warm out there, people, especially in the sun. And the temperature is supposed to go up.

It's always amazing to me... in November, when it hits 40 degrees, we're freezing and we bundle up. In March when it hits 40 degrees, we shed our coats and talk about how beautiful it is...

Life is a matter of perspective, no?

Sleepy Time

Well, it's officially March. I now feel justified in complaining if the weather takes a dip below 20 degrees, or if it snows again... even though historical patterns hint that inevitable, it will snow again. But somehow, in my mind, we've passed a barrier. March is the month when spring officially begins (20 days hence) and we should be marching (ha!) in that direction, at least.

February went out with some miserable weather -- mid-30's yesterday with sleety rain. Lovely. The type of weather that makes you want to curl up and read a book. Which is pretty much what I did, despite some good intentions and a mounting mess in the house. On Friday, I began a sketch when I was out with a class of alder catkins, which are beginning to swell... or maybe they spend the whole winter looking bloated and I don't notice until I'm ready to start picking out signs of spring. But some of them are small, compact, and burgundy, while others are both longer and fatter, with bright green visible at the seams. Anyhow. I began a sketch, but it was quite cold on Friday and there was only so much sketching I could do outdoors. I pulled a catkin to bring with me and finish the drawing over the weekend... but that didn't happen, either. Yes, that's right. I committed flora-cide and I didn't even use the thing. I had aspirations of blogging, I really did.

My dad said once that he thinks that all mammals, including us, have an ancient denning instinct. Although only a few mammals truly hibernate -- bats, ground squirrels -- many den up in the winter. They may cache food or have enough of a metabolic slow-down that they don't eat at all. They may come out every few weeks to poke around (as skunks and opossum are known to do) or stay hidden for the entire season (as with bears, the most famous hibernators-who-don't-truly-hibernate). And so the idea is that we are like the chipmunks under the front stoop or the raccoon under the back porch... hunkering down, waiting out the cold, curling up for a nap.

I like this theory for more than one reason. The first is that it gives me a biological excuse for laziness during the months of the year when I am most likely to be lazy. The second is that it acknowledges our connection to the wild in ourselves and to our wild relatives. In the end, it takes a long time to overcome the behavioral patterns that have led to evolutionary success, and we humans haven't been bucking the system for that long, in the grand scheme of things. We are still, at the core, animals, and we are still governed by natural rhythms, no matter how much we try to ignore them.

This is actually why I like snow days, as well. No, not because I get to stay home and curl up and follow my natural instinct to den in the winter, if not hibernate... actually, it's because when we take snow days, it is acknowledging that we are not, as humans, in control of everything. We may want to be and think we are, but at the end of the day, nature has the ultimate control. And it shouldn't take an earthquake killing hundreds, or even an extraordinary 24-inches-in-one-day storm, to remind us of that. A simple mid-western weather event will suffice. When flights are cancelled due to weather, everyone gets angry. On snow days, we remember to be humbled instead of mad, and we celebrate the season we're in.

Enough of that. Yawn. If I curl up under my desk and sleep through my classes, do you think the excuse that I'm just following my natural instinct to den will hold water?