Spring in the woods begins gradually and quietly with an exquisite giddiness waiting right on the cusp of these warming days.
Wilderness Park trails are a bit mucky right now with the babble and slosh of melting snow, but the air is filled with birdsong and that heady, entrancing smell of deep, wet earth.
The woodland canopy is patchy enough to let the pale sunlight through. The earth is awakening with misty mornings and longer days. And the technicolor of spring will arrive at any moment: Trees will bud and flowers will blossom and spring will bloom.
In “Life in the Woods,” Henry D. Thoreau says this about spring:
Fogs and rains and warmer suns are gradually melting the snow; the days have grown sensibly longer; and I see how I shall get through the winter without adding to my woodpile, for large fires are no longer necessary. I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, to hear the chance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel's chirp, for his stores must be now nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters.”
