Signs of Spring :: Anne McAllister

I just came home from a week in Texas.  It was like fast forwarding through the first bit of spring.

Or it should have been.

As it happened, I packed spring things – you know, t-shirts, cropped jeans, sandals – and I should have packed a heavier jacket, a raincoat, and umbrella and more wool socks.  But that’s beside the point because, despite unseasonably lousy weather for half of my visit, the other half was splendid.

And I saw spring flowers. Bluebonnets, actually. Lots and lots of bluebonnets.  And I saw buds on trees. I saw flowers that we won’t be seeing for at least another three or four weeks. 

It was lovely. It was like skipping through the last dregs of winter – those snowstorms that the weather people promise (well, hint, anyway) will be the last of the season.  It was going to bed one night with the temperature at 39 and piling four (count ‘em. I did, religiously, as I piled them on because there was really nothing much in the way of heat) comforters, and waking up in the morning to find it was 60 degrees – and by noon it was 75. 

Sorry, I’m not going to convert that to Celsius for you.  Think of this as your math lesson today, and you can have extra credit if you get all the temps right.  What’s the extra credit?  Brownie points?  A free book?  Take your pick.

Anyway, I had a great time.  And I came home last night –and brought the rain with me.  Not sure how that happened, but all night long we had thunderstorms and I had a dog doing heavy-breathing in my ear. He has a Thundershirt, but I had to get up and find it before I could put it on him – and I had to turn on the light to do that. And after that, well, who could go back to sleep?

Like I said, signs of spring.

Here we are getting a few – the daffodils are not quite ready to burst into flower but they are at least poking their stems above the parapet these days.  When I left they weren’t.  The robins are out in full force – flocks of them. The geese are hedging their bet by flying, well, sort of due east these days. But once in a while a vee of them turns north.

And the dandelions are actually making a showing. Trust weeds to get a jump of everything else.  But they are cheerful and bright and that’s what we need now that the snow is gone (momentarily at least) and the grass still isn’t totally green yet.

My book, too, is looking cheerier. After a year-long winter, it’s moving into spring. My hero, who has been hibernating for I don’t even want to tell you how long, has yawned and stretched and opened and eye. He’s actually deigned to say a few things that I’m not instantly inclined to delete. My heroine has her bridesmaid dress for the wedding that will happening in June. 

Not long now.  Summer will be here before we know it.  But I’m going to bask in spring for as long as I can.  How about you?  What’s your favorite season? What signs of spring make you happiest? Or if you’re heading into autumn and winter, how do you feel about that?  Ready for it?  I’ll share mine with you!

photo credits:

1: User:Drumguy8800/Picture|Scalable Vector Graphic map of the location of Tarrant County in the state of Texas, via Wikimedia Commons.

2: Mannypr (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.

3: Christoph Michels (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)  via Wikimedia Commons.

4: Photograph taken by and (c)2007 Johnathan J. Stegeman (Midimacman) (Own work) [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons.

5: By Sujit kumar (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.