Birth of the Spring

Friday I left my office at 3 and headed for the Woods. The day was too inescapable. Warm soft sun, 65 degrees F. I propped up the fence in the NW and then walked in past the NW Pond. After a good slow soaking inch and a third of rain earlier in the week, the tops of the leaves in the litter had just dried again with the soft warmth. All through the Woods, the trees were waking. Rain, mild warmth, enough previous winter cold to start the clock fresh for the new season, and now mid February daylight hours growing rapidly. At home the silver maples out front have swelling and opening flower buds. In the Woods the elm flowers are beginning to open. By the East Pond I disturbed a whitetail doe and 3 yearlings who sprinted and bounded away east.. but not far. The doe stared curiously at me as I sang my deer song and waved. The green in the delta is not much more developed than weeks ago. The Eastern Wash had plenty of water at the Elm Bridge. I could see where the flow had spilled out of the Wash and pushed west and south clearing the leaves. Here and there, there were winding tracks of armadillos nosing through the leaf litter hunting for invertebrates.