The incredibly warm weather this week still hasn’t melted all the ice in Cambridge — we still have to walk over a thick slab of ice when we go out the back door of the house where we’re cat-sitting. But most of the ice is gone, and I saw big fuzzy catkins on a pussywillow tree over by Alewife Brook this afternoon.
Category Archives: Spring
Spring watch
Yesterday, the last day of February, I walked over to Fort Phoenix state beach. It’s a 45 minute walk, and once I got there I didn’t walk out on the hurricane barrier to look at the harbor, and I completely ignored the beach itself. I walked all the way to the far end of the park where the Red-winged Blackbirds like to congregate. Suddenly I heard one, the familiar “konk-a-reeee!” By the time I got to the boundary of the park, I could hear dozens of them. I couldn’t see them, and I didn’t want to walk through the yards of the private houses where I knew they were roosting. But it was good enough for now just to hear them, a sure sign of spring.
Spring watch
As usual, I went out to greet people in front of the church before worship service this morning. Arthur, the Sunday sexton, pointed out three small white flowers blooming beside the gate, right next to the sidewalk. They’re snowdrops, of course (Galanthus species), the earliest garden flower, blooming right on schedule.
Carol and I walked out to Pope’s Island this afternoon, where we bought the Sunday newspapers and then sat in Dunkin’ Donuts reading and sipping coffee, and looking out the big plate glass window at the lower harbor with Palmer’s Island lighthouse in the distance. With the warm weather this past week, most of the ice has disappeared from the harbor.
But spring’s not here yet. I still see all the familiar winter waterfowl on the harbor. And the forecast is for more snow tonight.
A rumor of spring
The two red pennants — signifying a gale warning — over the harbormaster’s office snapped in the winter wind sweeping down out of the northwest. Walking across to Fairhaven, I noticed that the frigid weather of the past few weeks has finally caused a thin skin of ice to grow across a good part of the shallow water between New Bedford and Fish Island. The waves kicked up by the wind reflected off the edge of the ice, but the ice was so thin that the waves also passed through it in a diminished state; the ice was so thin that it was still flexible. When I got closer I could see that the ice had faint lines running through it, so that it almost had the texture of skin. Of course there was no ice between Fish Island and Pope’s Island’ that’s where the thirty-foot deep channel for shipping runs. But ice stretched all the way from Pope’s Island to Fairhaven, and from Fairhaven to Crow’s Island, and thin sheets of ice covered much of the water all along the Fairhaven side of the harbor.
In spite of all the ice, I read today that a thousand Red-Winged Blackbirds arrived in Dover last weekend, just twenty miles north of here: the first rumor of spring.
Spring watch?
Spring watch?
Is it summer yet? Or is it still spring?
Here in southern New England, I think of summer as a time when the weather patterns settle down and become fairly predictable. When it gets sunny, you know it’s going to stay sunny for a few days. In summertime, you can count on the weather.
We’ve had four days without rain now, but it hasn’t felt like summer. The weather has been a little too variable: windy, calm, warm, cool, dry, damp. It got up near 80 yesterday, but we had a blanket on last night. Sunny this morning, but clouds moved in today, heavy enough that I brought an umbrella when I went up to the church late this afternoon. Now they’re saying we’re going to have mixed showers and sunshine over the next few days.
We can’t quite trust the weather yet. Guess that means it’s still spring.
Spring watch
The arrival of local vegetables defines late spring for me. Last Sunday, I had to drive from Chelmsford back to New Bedford, and I decided to use some back roads instead of getting right on the highway. I found myself driving past Verrill Farm, not far from where we once lived, and I could see that their strawberry plants were in full bloom. That could mean only one thing: it was asparagus time. I pulled into the farmstand.
There it was, right at the entrance to the farmstand. Asparagus: bunches of thin, tender stalks, slightly purple at the base shading into pale green and up to the dark green tips. My mouth started watering as soon as I saw the asparagus.
And rhubarb: long, gently curved stalks, a vivid vermilion with green undertones. I got three or four pounds of it. And early raspberries, horrendously expensive at six dollars for a scant pint, but I had to buy some anyway. And pea tendrils, an odd vegetable to be sure, but I was craving fresh greens so I got some of them, too. And I got some local honey to sweeten up the rhubarb.
So I’ve been eating well all week. I finished the last of the pea tendrils tonight. I’ll go out and get some more asparagus on Friday — none of that tough rubbery asparagus they fly in from California, you have to get it fresh and local, so fresh and tender you don’t even have to cook it. And maybe I’ll get some local lettuce, too.
Soon it will be time for local peas, and all kinds of greens, and then strawberries. And strawberry season marks the beginning of summer.
Spring watch
The drive from New Bedford up to Cambridge takes you through wooded swamps in the town of Freetown on the south coastal plain of Massachusetts. At this time of year the swamps are mostly gray: gray twigs, gray branches, gray tree trunks. Just now, as leaves are just starting to come out on some trees, you’ll also see colors that are almost autumnal in hue. The brilliant crimson of the last of the Red Maple flowers almost hides the gray branches in places. A nearby maple will appear dull orange from a distance, from the reddish hue of the tiny new leaves just bursting out from buds. The hanging blossoms on a birch tree are nearly yellow, with just a tinge of green. As you drive by on the highway, winter gray still dominates; the crimson, dull orange, and bright yellow hues will last for just a few days, a brief anticipation of autumn before the swamp trees turn brilliant green.
Spring walk
Walking into the cold northeasterly wind, bits of white blew into my face.
I still remember the May snowstorm twenty years ago; no electricity for a week.
But these bits of white were apple blossom petals, blown off the tree by the wind.
This was on one of the street corners where immigrants protested yesterday.
The apple blossom petals blow off to reveal green new leaves emerging.
Spring watch
This morning, as I was getting ready to head up to the church, I happened to look across the street at the maple tree there. Our apartment is on the second floor, so I was looking right into the middle of the tree, the outermost branches still mostly covered with its tiny crimson flowers, although some of the flowers are dropping and the seeds are starting to form.
Some small birds were flitting through the branches. They were flying among the maple blossoms, presumably cropping either insects insects in the flowers, or the nectar from the flowers. This kind of behavior is typical of warblers, so I walked over the the window hoping for a glimpse of some brightly-colored mirgratory warbler. But is was plain ordinary House Sparrows engaging in this warbler-like behavior. Perhaps this is an example of an invasive species which is adept at surviing in a relatively hostile urban environment, filling an ecological niche usually filled by another species.