The Joys of Spring

Despite our recent blast from old man winter, spring is officially here. I am sure the U.P. has made the national news the past few days because of the late-season winter storm that dumped up to 20 inches of snow in some locations; particularly on the west end. I am pretty pleased that in the location I am blogging from, we only picked up a few inches of snow yesterday and already it is mostly gone. And with how wet and heavy the consistency of the snow is, it should melt pretty quickly once the temperatures warm up. It doesn't sound like we will get too warm today, with high temperatures only getting up into the middle 40's. But after today and a few days beyond, we'll get into the 50's and 60's. What a wild roller coaster of extreme weather up here. And prior to this winter storm, we had temperatures up into the 70's last Friday! Hopefully no more snow until next winter now.

The spring season is probably my second favorite of the four seasons. Spring officially starts for me once the snow begins to melt. The warm late-winter sun can really have an effect on the lingering snow pack, even if temperatures aren't that warm. Once you hear the water flowing down the side of the streets into catch basins - spring can't be that far away. Another sure sign of spring is when the birds start arriving from the south. The American Robin is the state bird of Michigan, and they are typically one of the first birds to arrive from the south. I've heard a few instances where some Robins have stayed around all winter as long as they have a sufficient supply of food, such as berries or fruit from trees. But that's pretty extreme as Robins are not that fond of the cold weather. I guess on average, once the snow begins to leave, then it's pretty easy to spot that first Robin of the season. However, I'm usually not surprised to see one even when we still have a pretty healthy snowpack on the ground. They get pretty anxious to move north and many times, the weather in Upper Michigan can be quite deceiving. Soon afterwards, the birds of the blackbird family start arriving like the Brown-headed Cowbirds, Grackles, and Red-Winged Blackbirds. The calls of birds quickly start to awaken a landscape that had been in a cold, lazy sleep from the deep of winter.

Soon or shortly before all the snow leaves, there is a definite hint of spring smells in the air. The major one is the smell of living "things" starting to grow up from the ground. For example, the grass. One way to conjure up the smell of growing grass is to use a garden rake to rake the dead blades of grass and other assorted debris that have landed on the lawn during the winter time. It usually helps for the temperatures to be warmer than the 40's and the sun to be brightly shining. This helps to awaken the grass and other plants even more. Then you have the spring bulbs starting to burst from the ground. Once the bulbs are fully grown, they can be an assortment of perennial plants like tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and many others. Most of them do not have a distinct spring smell but some do. As we move even further into the spring season, the sights, sounds, and smells of spring grow and grow. Not only do we have the young frogs or peepers begin to make their evening calls in the swamps and rivers of the country side, but the buds on trees begin to open up. It's not much longer before the wonderful summer season is officially upon us.

I am sure each and every person has their own sights and sounds that make it feel like spring is with us. The ones that I mentioned are probably the most obvious to me. That's not to say spring can be an ugly time of the year, too, because as we've seen the past few days around here - it definitely has its ugly side! Especially when the temperatures stay really chilly and it takes forever to melt the snow. Nothing can properly grow when it's that cold. Luckily for us, we've had some warm days dispersed in between the cold. I just hope this is the last that we've seen of the snow because after all, it's almost May! I thought April showers brought May flowers? But for us in the U.P., we always seem to end up with April snow showers than actual liquid precipitation more often than not. Here's to warmer spring days ahead!