Here, at least, Spring is no longer theory, but solidly fact. The grass is truly green, its color full and robust and overtaking the brown patches of earth with stunning rapidity. A week ago, the willow branches turned over, going from gold to green, if still with a hint of chartreuse; by yesterday, they were fully green and flowering fast. Three days ago, one of the twinned pairs of aspens opened its buds, the soft pollen-laden fronds dangling from the branches like Christmas ornaments for a warmer season; yesterday, another single aspen began to follow suit.
The catkins are here, and with them, the promise of the ease and gentleness of the warming sun.
Across the road, the cottonwoods have altered, too: Where a week ago, their tops still shone copper in the light of the setting sun, now a soft green subsumes the metallic effect.
And the evergreens, the piñon and juniper and spruce that hold color year-round . . . they, too, have donned more brilliant dress, their newly-lush needles dancing in the bold spring winds in brilliant shades of warm soft green.
Nestled deep in the piñon’s sturdy matrix of branches is a complex house, a home: a magpie’s nest, built carefully, industriously, with twigs and branches and bits of horsehair freely given by the larger creatures. The magpies sit along the crest of the horses’ necks and atop their backs, harvesting their giant cousins’ shedding winter coats. The horses are more comfortable without the loose and itchy excess hair; the birds are able to build their homes, weaving the hair in and among and through the twigs, mortar and insulation both.
The magpies are brilliant architects, and practical, too: They choose the screening safety of evergreen trees and tall stands of red willow for their homes, but occasionally, the red willows prove vulnerable to predatory ravens. Last year, when a group of ravens began flyovers, reconnoitering their oval egg targets in the giant nest in the red willows, the adult magpies chased them off . . . and promptly built a vaulted roof, sloping downward to connect to the sides of the nest. Plenty of room on the side for the parents to enter, but impossible for a predator to swoop in and make off with their offspring.
And when the magpies abandon the nests, as happens in late summer once the fledglings are strong enough to subsist on their own, the little birds of winter move in: juncos, sparrows, finches, occasionally chickadees, turning the giant homes into housing for their extended families. All winter long, we’ve been given the gift of their song as they go to and fro about their days in two of the evergreens just outside the windows. Soon, their winter children will be fully grown, and it will be time for them to move on, and the magpies will resume their occupancy, rebuilding and renovating as needed.
In the meantime, we two-legged beings have much to do.
We were blessed in this new year with late snows and early rains, and the increasingly early warm temperatures mean that planting season must begin early this year. The earth is rich and loamy, but it’s time for tilling; in a matter of weeks, it’ll be time to irrigate, a process done here by hand, the old way.
For now, it’s time to clear the ground of the detritus of winter; time to gather up the stones, giant pale eggs themselves, to be used as weights and markers; time to plough the soil and ready it to receive the seeds that will grow tall and broad and strong, into corn and beans and squash.
Because despite the weather, still confused, despite winter’s reluctance to depart entire — despite yesterday’s own progression from hot sun to wind-driven thunderheads to snow-softened hail and back to clear skies again — despite the vagaries of this threshold season, all too soon it will be Summer.
We know by the signs, and they are here: the signs of Spring.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
