Almanac

Something primal awakens within you on the first day of spring.

You rake the lawn, re-seed bare patches, feed the compost, prune the
fruit trees, repair the wooden trellis, and celebrate the new buds on the heirloom azalea.

Soon, the banksia rose will be a waterfall of fragrant yellow blooms, and foxglove will swoon from the tender kiss of a ruby-throated hummingbird.

Spring is synonymous with life, and each breath is nectar to your soul. As robin exhales mirthful tunes of snowdrop, crocus and daffodil, you find yourself whistling along. Today: songs of iris, thrift and pussy willow. Tomorrow: ballads of blue speckled eggs. 

When the soil is workable, you sow the first of the peas, spinach, lettuce and leeks, sealing each seed with a silent prayer.

Tuesday, March 20, officially marks the vernal equinox. Urban legend has it you can keep an egg balanced upright at the exact moment that the sun crosses the plane of the Earth’s equator. Perhaps. Although you might have a better chance of cutting a deal with the wisteria.

Interview with a Leprechaun

If ever there were an optimal day to spot a leprechaun, surely it would be March 17. That’s what an Irish-blooded friend of mine stands by. As a young girl, Mary would wake with the birds on St. Patrick’s Day morn — the day before her birthday — and lie in the grass in her front yard.

“I thought for sure I would spot a leprechaun there at sunrise,” she recently told me. “I could feel it in my bones.”

Year after year she tried, but on the day before her 11th birthday, she gave up. Perhaps it was silly to believe in the magic of St. Paddy’s Day.

Or maybe it wasn’t.

At sunrise on her 11th birthday, something told her to lie in the yard once more.   

“I saw a quick movement out of the corner of my eye,” she remembers, then ran across the yard to discover a perfect four-leaf clover in the grass.

“I still swear a leprechaun guided me there,” she says.

Flash forward 20-plus years to a Welsh pony farm in western North Carolina where, this time of year, when the weeping cherry is in bloom, Mary finds four- and five-leaf clovers on a daily basis — sometimes by the dozen.

Halloween of 2015, while scanning a favorite field for an hour and a half, she found 117 four- and five-leafers, which she handed out to trick-or-treaters.

“I dressed up as a leprechaun for the occasion.”

How on this clover-loving Earth does she find them?

“Sometimes I see them as movement, and sometimes I hear their vibration,” she explains. “Nature speaks to those who listen.”

If the leprechauns aren’t guiding her, then perhaps the luck is simply in her blood. I’m inclined to believe that both are true.

The best thing about finding clovers?

“Giving them away,” says Mary. “I love seeing the smile on the face of someone who has never seen a four-leaf clover in person.”

The Lunar Report

Two full moons this month. On Thursday, March 1, celebrate the Full Worm Moon by sowing the season’s first root crops and fruiting perennials. Named by the Native Americans who so intimately knew and loved the land, this year’s third full moon signifies a softening Earth and the return of the robin. A second full moon falls on Sunday, March 31. Celebrate by doing that once-in-a-blue-moon something.

Bird Messenger

In Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s novel, a cheerful robin helps 10-year-old Mary Lennox unearth a rusty key to a long-abandoned garden.

The Secret Garden isn’t just a story of forgotten roses and the promise of spring. It’s about the healing properties of the Earth, and how, within and without, love can transmute the bleakest and most dismal places. Listen to the robin: The key is in the soil beneath you.

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It is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.  —  Wallace Stevens, “No Possum, No Sop, No Taters”

Begin Again

Perhaps it’s true that the best narratives are cyclical, taking the reader on a figurative journey that ultimately leads them back where they started, yet, through some alchemical reaction, altogether transformed. Like the fool’s journey, or the legendary ouroboros eating its own tail.

Which brings us back to January.

Outside, a pair of cardinals flits between the naked branches of a dogwood and the ornate rim of the pedestal birdbath. You think of the piebald gypsy cat who used to visit, how he would balance on the ledge to take a drink. Months have passed since you’ve seen him, but that drifter has charm. You’re sure he’s napping in some cozy sunroom, patiently waiting for the catkins and crocus, for the cheerily, cheer-up, cheer-up, cheerily return of the robin. The warmth of your own smile stretches across your face, and in this moment, all is well. 

On this first day of January, you imagine the New Year unfolding perfectly. Steam curls from your tea mug as an amalgam of flavors perfumes the air.

Cinnamon bark, licorice, ginger and marshmallow root . . .

Giving yourself permission to luxuriate, you reach for a favorite book of poems. “To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June,” said German author Jean Paul. You turn to a dog-eared page, can almost smell the honeysuckle and wild rose. You’ve read this poem many times, yet, like you, it is brand-new.

Blue Moon with Honey

Henry David Thoreau could wax poetic on “That grand old poem called Winter.” Perhaps it’s not the easiest season to weather, but from darkness comes light. Behold phloxes and hellebores, snowdrops and winter-blooming iris, and on Wednesday, Jan. 3, until the wee hours of Thursday, Jan. 4: the Quadrantids meteor shower. 

Named for Quadrans Muralis, a defunct constellation once found between the constellations of Boötes and Draco, near the tail of Ursa Major, the Quadrantids is one of the strongest meteor showers of the year. Although a just-full moon may compromise viewing conditions, you won’t want to miss a chance to see this celestial event.

Twelfth Night (Jan. 5), the eve of Epiphany, marks the end of the Christmas season and commemorates the arrival of the Magi who honored the Infant Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Seeking a hangover cure following this night of merrymaking and reverie? Ginger tea. And don’t be shy with the honey dipper. The natural sugar will help your body burn off what’s left of the wassail.   

January’s blue moon falls on the last day of the month. Reflect upon the ways you let your own light shine on this rare and energetically powerful night. Like attracts like. What are you calling in for 2018?

To Your Health!

Traditionally served in a large wooden bowl adorned with holly and ivy, wassail is a hot alcoholic cider that spells celebration. Many recipes call for port, sherry and fresh-baked apples, but here’s a simple (un-spiked) version for you. Start now and wrap your hands around a mug of hot wassail within the hour. Serves four.

Ingredients

2 cups apple cider

1 cup orange juice

Juice of one lemon

2 cinnamon sticks

6 cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a large pan.

Bring to simmer over medium-low heat. 

Reduce heat. Continue simmering for 45 minutes. 

Ladle into mugs and enjoy.

There are two seasonal diversions that can ease the bite of any winter. One is the January thaw. The other is the seed catalogues.  — Hal Borland

Almanac

Winter Is Here

Deadhead the rose bush. Prune the wild muscadine. Move the front porch pumpkins to the compost pile. 

The days grow shorter, yet from darkness comes light. Behold phlox and hellebores, snowdrop and iris, camellia and winter-flowering crocus.

This month, while the soil is cool, plant spring bulbs and fruit trees, harvest edible weeds and winter greens, and when the work is done, create sacred space to enjoy the season. And beaucoup peppermint.

First cultivated in 1750 near London, England, as an experimental hybrid between water mint and spearmint, this perennial herb has long been used for its magical and medicinal qualities. According to The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, however, the candy cane came before its flavor. Sometime around 1670, a choirmaster in Cologne, Germany, asked a local confectioner to come up with a special candy stick to help pacify the young folks during the live Nativity on Christmas Eve. Shaped like a shepherd’s staff, this sugary creation surely kept them quiet (and buzzing) until the Magi arrived.

Want to grow your own? If you’re going for potency (read: high oil content), go with black peppermint, named for its dark purple-green leaves and stems. White peppermint has a milder flavor, but crush the leaves between your fingers and feel an instant calm throughout your entire being. Because this aromatic herb can quickly take over an entire garden, and because it craves rich soil and good drainage, container gardening is recommended. Full sun increases its medicinal qualities (and makes for stronger, spicier tea).

Stocking Stuffers

• Pear tree seed

• Bird food

• Binoculars 

Peppermint Tea for Two

2 cups water

14 peppermint leaves

2 teaspoons honey

Bring water to boil

Place leaves in teacups; cover

mint with hot water

Steep for 5 minutes

Remove leaves (or not)

Add honey

Steep with fresh tarragon leaves and a quarter-inch slice of vanilla bean to enter a new realm. Add lemon wedge to continue the journey.

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. — William Blake

Celestial Shower

As we approach the winter solstice — the longest night of the year — we look to the stars to celebrate a new season, and the final hours of the year. The Geminid meteor shower peaks on the night of Wednesday, Dec.13, until the earliest hours of Thursday, Dec. 14. Sky-watchers may see as many as 60 to 120 shooting stars per hour predawn. Watching with friends or loved ones? Steep a pot of peppermint tea or keep the cocoa simmering on the stovetop for this enchanted celestial event. PS

Almanac

By Ash Alder

In the evenings
I scrape my fingernails clean,
hunt through old catalogues for new seed,
oil work boots and shears.
This garden is no metaphor —
more a task that swallows you into itself,
earth using, as always, everything it can.

—Jane Hirshfield, November, “Remembering Voltaire”

Sweet, bare-branched November. Sweet hearth fires and gray dawns and Indian corn. Sweet, sweet pumpkin bars.

Many consider this 11th month to be an auspicious time for manifestation. But first we must clear out the old. We rake leaves for compost, pull weeds, rid the garden of debris. And as we harvest the last of the eggplant and peppers, autumn sunlight washing us golden, we offer gratitude for the glory and abundance of the present moment. Wisdom and beauty are here, now. Like the white-tailed deer, peacefully grazing on the forbs and grasses along the quiet back road. She will disappear beyond the forest veil in an instant.

In the spirit of manifestation, here are 11 seeds of inspiration for the November gardener:

Sow poppy seeds on the full Frost Moon (November 4) for a dreamy spring.

Ditto larkspur. The spur of this showy and complex flower resembles the hind toe of the crested songbird for which it was named.

Watch the last of the leaves turn.

Plant a fruit tree. Fig, apple, persimmon or plum? One way to decide: Consider future chutney, pudding and pie.

Cilantro is surprisingly cold hardy. Growing some? More is more.   

Feed the birds.

Plant asparagus crowns.

Stop and smell the witch hazel flowers.

Force paperwhites, hyacinth, and amaryllis bulbs for holiday bloom.

Visit a pumpkin patch. 

Sow gratitude and watch it grow.

Celestial Kiss

According to National Geographic, one of the “Top 7 Must-See Sky Events for 2017” will occur on Monday, November 13. In the morning twilight, low in the eastern sky, Venus and Jupiter will appear to join, separated by just 18 arc-minutes — “equal to the apparent width of a half-lit moon.” Epoch conjunctions such as this aren’t once-in-a-lifetime happenings. Still, watching the sky’s two brightest planets canoodle at dawn is nothing short of magic. You’ll want binoculars for this celestial waltz.

The Gathering

Bring the magic of nature indoors this Thanksgiving season with a centerpiece of your own creation. Hollow a pumpkin and fill it with dahlias. Ignite the senses with cinnamon and eucalyptus. Embellish with pinecones, acorns, branches, seedpods, gourds, clementine, pheasant feathers, pomegranate, bundles of wheat wrapped in twine. Allow earth to inspire you. Just save room for Aunt Viola’s pumpkin bars.

Paperwhites 101

Paperwhite narcissus — or just paperwhites, as they’re more commonly known — grow just as soon as the bulbs are planted. Start them now for a wintertime centerpiece that signals spring’s faithful return. Choose a container (3 to 4 inches deep), spread an inch or two of pebbles along the bottom of it, then position the bulbs on the pebbles, pointy ends up. Add more pebbles to fill gaps and cover bulbs to the shoulders, then add water until it reaches the base of the bulbs. Check the water level daily, and when you notice roots, move the container to a sunny window. Once they flower (3 to 4 weeks), move them to a cool spot with indirect light. Enjoy.  PS

To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Time Traveling

July is here and you are fishing on the bank with Papa, readjusting his faded straw hat seconds before it slips down your brow again. You don’t notice. You are busy staring at the water’s surface, thinking about the dancing cricket at the end of the line.

Summer sends us time traveling. Shucking sweet corn on the front porch with mama. Potato sack racing with your cousins. Sparklers on the lawn.

Ripe blackberries straight from the bush, but nothing tastes sweeter than summer love. You relive that first kiss, stolen beneath the Southern magnolia, and daydream at the pool with flushed cheeks and pruned fingers.

Papa reaches for the bagged lunch you packed together, unwraps a tomato sandwich, takes a pull of iced tea from the thermos. He is flashing back to his own childhood summers when you feel the tug on your line.

You wrestle a tiny sunfish, straw hat now slipping down past your eyelids. The fish is too small to take home, but papa won’t let you know it. He puts down his sandwich to help you remove the hook. You slip your first-ever catch into papa’s bucket. He lifts the straw hat from your eyes, winks, and then kisses your brow.

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur
of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time. — John Lubbock

Full Buck Moon Magic

Sure as our summer garden delivers fresh cabbage (read sauerkraut), July inspires cucumber salad, pickled melon, cantaloupe gazpacho, blueberries and whipped cream. Fourth of July falls on a Tuesday this month. We prepare for backyard barbecues, look for cool and simple dishes to delight friends and family.
At market, baskets of golden peaches spell homemade ice cream. The kids will love it. Hosting or traveling, stock up on pickled okra, scuppernongs, and heirloom tomatoes. This is a season that knows how to throw a delicious party. We oblige.

The Full Buck Moon falls on Sunday, July 9. If you’re gardening by the lunar cycle, pop flowering bulbs such as gladiolus and butterfly lily into the earth July 10–22 — day before the new moon. Not too late to plant squash, corn or snap beans, plus heat-loving herbs like basil, thyme and sage.

Summer doesn’t last forever. We’ve lived long enough to know that. As the cicadas serenade you into dreamland, allow visions of your autumn garden to come into focus. A gardener must always plan ahead.

Larks and Nymphs

Seeing as the spur of this month’s birth flower resembles the hind toe of a crested songbird, it’s little wonder how delphinium consolida got its common name. Larkspur (or Lark’s heel as Shakespeare called it) belongs to the buttercup family and, like the orchid, is a showy and complex flower. It’s also highly poisonous if consumed — but perhaps that’s what makes this striking beauty all the more appealing. Color variations convey different meanings. Purple says first love.

Water lilies aren’t just for frogs. Also a birth flower of July, genus Nymphaea takes its name from the Greek word meaning “water nymph” or “virgin.” A symbol of purity and majesty, the lotus flower is a spiritual icon in many cultures. Chinese Buddhists describe Heaven as a sacred lake of lotus flowers. Imagine.

Ah, summer,
what power you
have to make us
suffer and like it.

— Russell Baker

Something Different Dept.

Among the obscure holidays celebrated this month — Sidewalk Egg Frying Day (July 4), National Nude Day (July 14), and Yellow Pig Day (July 17), to name just a few — Build A Scarecrow Day is celebrated on Sunday, July 2. Egyptian farmers swaddled wooden figures with nets to create the first “scarecrows” in recorded history. Only they weren’t scarecrows, per se. They were used to keep quails from the wheat fields along the Nile River. If you’ve a corn crop to protect, consider making an art of it. But just remember, crows are smart cookies — and perhaps better friends than foe.  PS

Almanac

By Ash Alder

In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.–Aldo Leopold

 

The mockingbird sings 100 songs. Ballads of honeysuckle and wild rose. Lady’s slipper. Skipper and milkweed. Plump strawberries. Cottontail and mophead hydrangeas.

June is here, he whistles, prelude to a queue of tunes about cukes and pole beans, creaky tire swings, hives full of honey. His morning song, syrupy as the last spring breeze, is interrupted by a string of sharp rasps. The tune tells how to scold a crow.

As fox kits scuffle in a pine-fringed wood, the sweep of a tail sends a troupe of dandelion seeds swirling into the dreamy green yonder. Summer is near, the mockingbird calls. We can feel the truth of it.

Cicada skin clings to the grooved bark of an ancient willow. On the solstice, a little girl finds it. The mockingbird watches her carry it home. Summer is here, the bird sings. The girl places the empty vessel on her
windowsill, hums a tune as sunlight washes over the golden amulet.

Evening unfolds. Fireflies dance beneath the sugar maple and a resident toad joins the cricket symphony. Mockingbird sleeps, yet the music swells
into the night.

Magic of Midsummer

The days grow longer. On Friday, June 9, a full Strawberry Moon illuminates the tidy spirals of golden hay dotting a nearby pasture. For Algonquin tribes, this moon announced ripe fruit to be gathered. Because the hives now hum heavy, the June moon is also called the Mead Moon. Honey, water and yeast. Patience. Sip slowly the magic of this golden season. 

Perhaps stemming from the ancient Druid belief that summer solstice symbolizes the “wedding of Heaven and Earth,” many consider June an auspicious month for marriage. This year, Solstice falls on Tuesday, June 20. Celebrate the longest day of the year with sacred fire and dance. Now until Dec. 21, the days are getting shorter. Sip slowly the magic of these golden hours.

When the sun sets on Friday, June 23 — a new moon — bonfires will crackle in the spirit of Saint John’s Eve. On this night, ancient Celts powdered their eyelids with fern spores in hopes of seeing the wee nature spirits who dance on the threshold between worlds. 

Lady’s Fingers

Some like it hot. Some like it cold. Whichever your preference, fresh okra is one of this month’s most delicious offerings. Also called lady’s fingers, okra is a member of the mallow family (think cotton, hollyhock and hibiscus). The edible seedpods of this flowering plant are rich in vitamins and minerals that promote healthy vision, skin and immune system. Because it’s an excellent source of fiber, okra also promotes healthy digestion.

Father’s Day falls on Sunday, June 18. Say “I love you” with a jar of pickled okra — local and, perhaps, with a kick.

Everlasting Love

When you send someone roses — the birth flower of June — the color of the petals tells all. Red reads romance. Pink for gratitude. White or yellow for friendship. Orange for passion.  PS

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.

–William Shakespeare, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

Almanac

By Ash Alder

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. – Claude Monet

May is a month of magic. A single flower is proof. But the Earth spills fragrant blossoms with the fervor of a child in a spring wedding, hands dipping into that shaky wicker basket until the aisle resembles a sea of brush strokes — a Monet painting come to life.

May is a month of abundance. Plump strawberries. Rhubarb pie. Tomato vines winding up rustic garden trellises.

On May 1, an ancient fire festival called Beltane celebrates this fertile season with feasts and rituals. Midway between the spring equinox and summer solstice, Beltane was traditionally a celebration of light that marked the beginning of summer, a Gaelic May Day festival during which cattle were led between two sacred fires, the smoke from which was said to purify and shield the herd from disease before they were driven into open pasture. Villagers and couples danced round and leapt over the flames to cleanse their souls and invoke fertility and good fortune.

May is a month of flowers. In her book of essays and meditations inspired by a retreat to Florida’s Captiva Island in the early 1950s, Anne Morrow Lindbergh mused that “arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day — like writing a poem or saying a prayer.”

Mother’s Day falls on Sunday, May 14, two days after the full Flower Moon. Gift her wildflowers. A sprig of dogwood. Irises from the garden. Gather them in the early light and feel the magic of May pulsing within them.

Spring in a Bottle

Remember picking your first dandelion? How it yellowed your clothes and fingers? How its tiny florets rendered it the most perfect specimen you’d ever seen? Before you knew it as weed or edible, dandelion was faithful companion. You wove it into wildflower crowns, you gathered them for Mother, and gasped when you found one gone to seed. Even as a child, you somehow knew that dandies spread like laughter. For that, you were grateful.

In the spirit of that playful inner child, harvest a basketful of dandelions on a warm May evening. Make wine. Pop off the blossoms. Soak them in citrus juices. Boil with ginger and clove. Bottle the sweetness of spring to enjoy all year.

Dandelion wine recipes are nearly as easy to find as the star ingredient. Just be sure to harvest from someplace free of pesticides. And when the blossoms stain your fingers, don’t be surprised by a sudden impulse to turn a cartwheel or somersault across the lawn.

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.— A. A. Milne

The May Bush

The first maypoles were made of hawthorn, a mystical tree whose pale blossoms represent hope and supreme happiness. Also called thornapple, hawberry and May bush, the ancient Celts believed this magical tree could heal a broken heart. If you stumble upon a wild hawthorn, especially one growing among ash and oak, legend has it you have found a portal to the faerie realm.

The Celts sure love their nature spirits. According to Celtic tree astrology, those born from May 13 – June 9 draw wisdom from the sacred hawthorn. Creative and charismatic, hawthorn types are often found performing for a crowd. They’re most compatible with ash (Feb. 18 – March 17) and rowan signs (January 21 – Feb. 17).

And wouldn’t you know it? The hawthorn is one of two birth flowers of May, the other being lily of the valley — less fabled but far more fragrant.

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April Flowers

Daisy and sweet pea are this month’s birth flowers. The first is a symbol of innocence and purity, while the latter represents blissful pleasure. If you wish to brighten someone’s day, a simple bouquet of fern and daisies will speak volumes. A gift of fragrant sweet pea, on the other hand, is best reserved for a sweet goodbye.

Every spring is the only spring — a perpetual astonishment. — Ellis Peters

April Love Song

If ever there were a more delicious poem than April, perhaps only the bluebird would know it. Or the nectar-drunk duskywing. Or the glossy black rat snake, so entranced by the color of the robin’s egg that he swallows the pastel vessel whole.

April is here. Sow the beets and the broccoli. Plant the beans and the cukes. Harvest the tender green shoots of asparagus.

Welcome the rain. Let it kiss you, mused Harlem jazz poet Langston Hughes. Listen to its “sleep-song” on your roof at night.

Earth Day falls on Saturday, April 22. This month, gift the Earth a poem of love. Plant a tree in the garden. Buy local produce. Organize a community cleanup. And when the Earth sings, listen.   

Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.

The rain makes running pools in the gutter.

The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night —

And I love the rain.

— Langston Hughes, “April Rain Song”

Must-See Moon

According to National Geographic, one of the “Top 7 Must-See Sky Events for 2017” will occur on Monday, April 10. On this dreamy spring night, just moments after sunset, Jupiter and the near-full Pink Moon will rise together in the eastern sky like forbidden lovers.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac speculates that a full moon in April brings frost. While it’s not actually pink, Algonquin tribes likely named this month’s full moon for the wild ground phlox that blooms with the arrival of spring. Also called the Sprouting Grass, Fish and Egg Moon, if the full Pink Moon rises pale on April 11, bet your folklore-loving bippy it will rain.

A Few Delicious Words

Henry James once mused that “summer afternoon” were perhaps the “two most beautiful words in the English language.”

“Easter brunch” make a
lovely pair.

Ditto “asparagus frittata.”

So if you find yourself playing host on Sunday, April 16, and life gives you fresh asparagus spears, steam until tender then add them to your favorite egg dish.

The Medicine Chest

Want to try your hand at an herb garden? Start now. Since most herbs thrive in full or filtered sun, carve out a cozy outdoor space with optimal light and drainage. Then, allow yourself to dream. Conjure up visions of lush beds with tidy labels, dark opal basil tangled with pineapple sage, aromatic bundles of herbs hanging upside down inside the coolest rooms of the house. Whether it’s medieval apothecary or fresh pesto that you’re craving, April is here to help make manifest your fantasy.

Here’s what to plant this month. Cue “Scarborough Fair” for reference.

Parsley – Rich in cancer-fighting compounds.

Sage – Digestive aid.

Rosemary – Improves memory.

Thyme – Antiseptic and anti-fungal properties.  PS

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It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. –Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Worms on the March

March is here and the world begins to soften. Some six feet underground, the earthworms are thawing, and when their first castings reappear in the dormant garden, so, too, will the robin. You’ll hear his mirthful, rhythmic song on an otherwise ordinary morning, pastel light filtering through the kitchen window where the sleeping cat stretches out his toes and, slowly, unfurls.

Cheerily, cheer-up, cheer-up, cheerily, cheer-up.

In other words: Spring has arrived.

All at once you notice flowering crocus, catkins dangling from delicate branches, colorful weeds dotting sepia toned landscapes. You watch the robin trot across the lawn, chest puffed like a popinjay as he pinballs from worm to fat, delicious worm. Soon he will gather twigs, feathers and grasses to build his nest.

Cheerily, cheer-up, cheer-up, cheerily, cheer-up.

As the kettle whistles from the stovetop, the aroma of freshly ground coffee warming the sunny room, a smile animates your face with soft lines.

Spring has arrived, you think.

And the world stirs back to life.

The Goddess Returns

The Full Worm Moon and Daylight Saving Time both happen on Sunday, March 12.  Because maple sap begins to flow in March, Native Americans deemed this month’s full moon the Sap Moon. You won’t want to miss it. And while you may miss that hour of sleep after turning the clocks forward, the longer days will make up for it in no time — especially when the field crickets start sweet-talking you into porch-sitting past supper.

Although the lusty robin may have announced the arrival of spring weeks ago, Monday, March 20, officially marks the vernal equinox. Greek myth tells that Demeter, goddess of harvest and fertility, celebrates the six-month return of her beautiful daughter, Persephone (goddess of the Underworld), by making the earth lush and fruitful once again. 

International Day of Forests and World Poetry Day fall on Tuesday, March 21 — a day after the start of spring. Celebrate with a poem by your favorite naturalist, and if you’re feeling inspired, try reading a few lines to a favorite stand of oak, maple or pine. 

In the spirit of Saint Patrick’s Day (Friday, March 17), why not spread white or red clover seed across bare patches of the lawn? One benefit of this flowering, drought-resistant legume is that it attracts pollinators and other insects that prey on garden pests. Plus, if you find a four-leaf clover — supposedly there’s one for every 10 thousand with three leaves — it’s said to bring you good luck. Give the shamrock to a friend and your fortune will double.

According to National Geographic, one of the “Top 7 Must-See Sky Events for 2017” will occur on March 29. On this Wednesday evening, Mercury, Mars, and a thin crescent moon will form a stunning celestial triangle in the western sky, with Mercury shining at its brightest to the right of the moon and Mars glowing above them.

Each leaf,

each blade of grass

vies for attention.

Even weeds

carry tiny blossoms

to astonish us. –Marianne Poloskey, “Sunday in Spring”

 Bald Facts about Daffodils

The daffodil — also known as jonquil, Narcissus and “Lent Lily” — is the birth flower of March. Synonymous with spring, this cheerful yellow flower is a symbol of rebirth and good fortune. And a little-known fact: Medieval Arabs used daffodil juice as a cure for baldness.  PS

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February, a form

Pale-vestured, wildly fair,—

One of the North Wind’s daughters,

With icicles in her hair.

– Edgar Fawcett, “The Masque of Months” (1878)

.

 The Snow Moon

Perhaps no poem paints a more fitting portrait of this time of year than Thomas Hardy’s classic verse about a “blast-beruffled” bird whose joyful song pierces the silence of a dark and desolate eve like an arrow through autumn’s last apple.

Read: February is here. Behold the first glorious explosion of golden daffodils.

Although “Darkling Thrush” is set at the cusp of a new year (and century), its haunting image of “tangled bine-stems” slicing the sky “like strings of broken lyres” invokes, at least for this nature lover, the bleakest yet most beautiful days of winter. Since the heaviest snows tend to fall this month, the full moon on Friday, Feb. 10, has long been called the full snow moon. The Cherokee called it the bone moon because, well, food was so scarce that supper was often marrow soup.

Speaking of soup, now’s time for root vegetable stews and chowders thick with heavy cream and gold potatoes. Make enough and you can eat from it all week — a quick and hearty fix after a cold evening spent pruning the rose bush and deadheading pansies. Through the kitchen window, a brown thrasher gently swings on the suet feeder before disappearing with twilight. It’s cold, but daylight is stretching out a little further every day. The soup simmers on the stovetop. Spring will be here soon.

Say it with Flowers

Violet and primrose are the birth flowers of February. The old folk poem calls the flower blue, but violets bloom mauve, yellow and white, too. Gift a lover a violet on Valentine’s Day and they’ll read: I’ll always be true. As for the primrose, a pale yellow perennial that thrives in cool woodland glades, the message crackles like an ardent fire:
I can’t live without you.

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Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

Nor hath love’s mind of any judgment taste;

Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.

And therefore is love said to be a child

Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.

– William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

 

A Grimm Fellow

Wilhelm Grimm, younger of the Brothers Grimm, was born Feb. 24, 1786, in Hessen, Germany. Perhaps that’s why National Tell a Fairy Tale Day falls just two days later, on Sunday, Feb. 26. In addition to publishing a hefty collection of folk tales — “Hänsel and Gretel,” “Der Froschkönig” (“The Frog Prince”), “Dornröschen” (Sleeping Beauty), “Schneewittchen” (“Snow White”), and on and on — the brothers started writing a definitive German dictionary in 1838, but never did get around to finishing it. Add a little extra magic to this month of love by spinning a tale about fairies or mermaids, or, in the spirit of this bleak wintry season, perhaps something a bit darker. Like the one where the evil stepsisters cut off their toes to make the glass slipper fit.