Késsinnimek - Roots - RacinesIN PRAISE OF SPRING
by Louise Dubrule
by Louise Dubrule
Here we sit, in early March, and the weather guy on TV tells us that it will be 80 degrees over the weekend. Even for this part of far west Texas, that’s awfully early. What happened to the season that comes between winter and summer?
Having grown up in northern Vermont, we learned the joys of having four distinct seasons, and we all have our favorite. Some like the hazy days of summer, some prefer the exciting show of autumn foliage, and there are even those hearty folks who look forward to the deep snow and cold of winter. My heart longs for spring.
Actually, we grew up with five seasons, for between real winter and real spring, there was another period of time called ‘mud season.’ Those who have had to cope with this reality know the aggravation involved. The frozen countryside began to thaw and the back roads, as well as the shoulders of the main roads, became quagmires of mud. Woe to the unwary driver who became trapped. There were local farmers who made a bit of money pulling those innocents out of the muck with their heavy tractors. Mothers despaired of ever having clean floors again, for the youngsters tracked in the mud several times a day. Mama put some old rugs on the back porch for us to wipe our feet on, and we knew better than to come in the front door to leave foot prints on the polished linoleum in the living room. Of course, we could have slipped off our boots and shoes and left them outside, but chances are our socks were not that clean either, for who could resist stomping in a puddle or two?
Along with the mud season came the breaking of the ice fields in the high areas. With the thaw, the thick ice in the brooks and rivers began to break up and flow downstream. Some towns had contests to see if people could come close to guessing the right date, much like betting in a football pool. While it was exciting to see big chucks of ice that could be two or three feet thick bobbing along, there was always a threat. The oddly-shaped pieces had a tendency to pile up against bridges and along dams and they exerted great force due to their sheer weight. There were many years that the Mississquoi River was totally blocked with a dense ice jam. The islands in the channel were flooded, as was the basement of the Sweat Coming Furniture Factory. The shoulders of the road to East Berkshire were littered with the ice floes that had swept over the banks of the river. On a couple of occasions, the ice jam was so severe that dynamite was brought in to help break it up.
When actual spring arrived, it was the realization of God’s promise: what was dead became alive again. It was a time of rebirth and renewal. The message of Easter was evident everywhere, though some Easter Sundays Mama and the other ladies had to put off wearing their new straw hats. The snow melted away until only a few patches remained in the deep shadows, and the grasses began to show bits of green here and there. Spring arrived on little cat feet, slowly and silently. The season took its time so we had a chance to savor every little change.
My friend Jeanne Chase had a grandmother who knew all the secret places in the woods, and she took us to look for the very early flowers that braved the elements to bloom. We found the tiny violets, the trailing arbutus, and little wild crocuses that peeked out from under the dead leaves. The lady cut us branches of wild fruit trees to bring home to force into flower, and it seemed a miracle. We tramped the creek banks to find willows that were putting out the fuzzy pussy willows, and we broke off branches to treasure the softness. Though I’ve been gone from Vermont over fifty years, my dear sister often spends a fortune to send me a box of those, as well as some lilies of the valley, for neither of those wonders grow here. Several years ago, a visiting child, a native of the arid Southwest, came upon a single pussy willow that had fallen off a branch from a vase on our bookshelf. He came to me with this little velvety gray thing in his open palm, convinced that he had found a mouse egg.
Spring in Vermont is composed of so many tints and shades of green that it boggles the mind. The gamut runs from the pale yellow-green of the willows against the bleak landscape to the emerald of the bulb flowers and the forest green of the flowering shrubs as they leaf out. Our heartbeats seemed to quicken with every new sign of life and we watched for the returning birds: the robins, the red-winged blackbirds, and the geese flying in formation as they headed north. In later April, we heard the little frogs as they found their voices and announced their existence.
The fields became carpets of dandelions and we didn’t care that these were weeds, for our souls were hungry for color. Mama put her geraniums out on the porch, at first in their pots so she could bring them in if the nights were cold. Papa hired a man to come plow and harrow the garden to get it ready, though in truth nothing went into the ground before Memorial Day except for radishes, lettuce and onion sets.
The fruit trees and berry brambles on abandoned farms finally put out buds, and Papa made a mental note of their location so we could return later to pick what we wanted. People who had planted tulip and daffodils in the fall were rewarded with a splash of color, providing the squirrels hadn’t helped themselves to the bulbs first.
Lilacs! The tall bushes finally put out buds, and if conditions were right, there were some branches in bloom in time to decorate graves on Memorial Day. Their natural aroma is pure and memorable, in league with baking bread and sheets dried in the sun and wind. The Shelburne Museum in Vermont holds a lilac festival every May, and the grounds are a wonderland of every color of lilacs imaginable, and some of the varieties even have double or ruffled blooms. To add to the magic, the ground under the lilac bushes is covered with lilies of the valley, some in shades of pink or yellow. This is truly food for the soul.
In this part of the country, spring is over before we realize it. The fruit and ornamental trees are in flower now. My blackberry bushes are full of big buds, as are the mulberry trees. What lilacs are hearty enough to survive here will be past their prime blooming time at the end of March. The only things that linger long enough to relish are the gold and orange Mexican poppies that grace the eastern foothills of our Franklin Mountains in the years that have had enough rain.
Eighty-two degrees is what is predicted for the 10th of March this year, while my sister in Morrisville reports twenty-five below zero yesterday morning. Still, I think she is the lucky one, for when spring finally arrives for her, it will be welcomed and truly enjoyed. Meanwhile, we’ll look at the pictures in the spring issue of Vermont Life and remember.
Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines
Copyright © 2003 & 2004 & 2005 & 2006 & 2007 Norm Léveillée
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Created 1 Feb 2003