It isn’t often that the timing of Easter and the coming of spring cooperate as nicely as they have this year (at least around here). Buds appeared on the trees a little earlier than usual, but waited until Easter week to pop out into leaves. Now, green is rapidly replacing brown as the dominant color, as if celebrating on cue the resurrection of Christ.
Birds are busy building nests. Bulbs are sending sprouts up through the surface of the soil. As I write, a gentle rain is soaking the ground, bringing a richer shade of green to lawns and new growth to perennial plants.
Soon, the muddy earth will be firmed up by stronger, deeper roots, the forsythia will burst into splashes of yellow, and warmer temperatures will become the rule instead of the exception.
I’m grateful to live in a place where the transition to spring is so noticeable. I was talking about this just recently with someone else who, like me, grew up in the South, where the climate is so warm that winter hardly happens at all. As children, we simply did not appreciate the coming of spring. Flowers were in bloom by Valentine’s Day, which means they weren’t gone long enough to really miss them.
In fact, we barely noticed autumn – it came around Thanksgiving when our thoughts were turning toward the holidays, and the colors were not nearly as brilliant as they are here. As for winter, I’ll take snow over hurricanes, tornadoes, and dust storms any day. Snow can be moved, and eventually it just melts, and before it goes, it is beautiful to behold.