Monday was the first 'official' day of spring and I wondered what to write. But here it seems far too artificial a date to choose for spring 'arriving'. If you look it up, Mar. 20th or 21st of March is astronomical spring, when the March equinox occurs, though there aren't many (any?) signs of green outside yet. Weather forecasters, who always want to be different, pick March 1st as meteorological spring, which I understand, but can't see the value in.
So I started back through some of my blog posts over the past 10 years to see what and when I had written about spring. And here's what I think.
Late March and April is sort of hydrological spring, or snowmelt spring. And I found lots of evidence of snowmelt, temporary ponds and roaring waterfalls for evidence.
Eugenia Falls the year of severe early spring floods in the valley. The water rose so high in Lake Eugenia that they opened the gates of the dam and let a deluge out over the falls and down the valley, flooding several homes and closing roads.
That flood covered the golf course at the old Talisman ski club. This is where the local municipality wants to approve a new subdivision! How short the memories!
And in our own back yard at the previous house we had a small pond that year. Never before or after did we see water accumulating like this. There's a path I used to mow right through the middle of that water!
So late March and early April are certainly the months when the snow melts, the streams refill, the groundwater is replenished and the waterfalls roar - sounds like 'hydrological' spring to me. As for greenery, that's still a long way off, though a few early spring flowers like Snowdrops, Aconite and Skunk Cabbage do show up to provide advance promises of what's to come. It's in May that the world turns green here, quite suddenly it always seems to me.
Early May in the woods, when there's a sheen of green across the ground but the tree leaves are still in hiding. The beginning of that magical ephemeral spring wildflower season, in three weeks the woods will be a very different place.
And here it is three weeks later, the woods looks green and the shade is beginning to fill in.
Accompanied by Trilliums galore - if you know where to look. At the end of May the risk of frost is over here on the southern shores of Georgian Bay and tomatoes can be planted. May is truly our biological spring. Right now that's just a promise in the future, but the snow is melting fast today, so that's encouraging.
So there you have it, my musings on the arrival of spring.
Those beautiful Trilliums, down here we see them in gardens, not a prolific patch like yours. And now we enter Autumn well and truly, small patches of snow high up in both North and South Islands, our fireplace has had it's annual clean and new insulation rope installed, firewood has arrived, and flooding, it seems to be in so many places these days. How short can municipal memories be!!!
ReplyDeleteSpring comes every year but who knows what the day will be like. :)
ReplyDeleteNice looking back with you.
You do have visual evidence of many kinds of spring weather. Two years ago we had an early spring and everything was up and blooming. This year there is not a single daffodil or crocus coming up out of the ground.
ReplyDeleteThose trilliums are worth the wait.
ReplyDeleteOnce spring starts to take hold, it gets beautiful quickly!
ReplyDeleteI can't get over that patch of Trilliums!!
ReplyDeleteSpring takes it's time to do what it does. One of my favorite parts is when tree leaves first come out.
ReplyDeleteI still have close to three feet of snow in my yard, just east of Algonquin. I dispair that this will be one of those rare years when we still have some of the white stuff in May.
ReplyDeleteI like the concept of meteorological seasons, but it is a difficult concept to apply in Canada. I am not sure that our meteo spring would begin much before May. I think it works for summer and the beginning of fall, but our long winter truncates both autumn and spring. (Am I making any sense? I seem to be blathering. 🤓)
ReplyDeleteYou're never blathering!
DeleteI love your abundant trillium!
ReplyDeleteWe always say 'spring is just around the corner ' and no true words are spoken. No saying how far or near the corner may be!
ReplyDeleteThat is a great post! It is interesting looking back. Yes, memory is short. They are putting in a new development in Perth on pretty low land, beside a wetland. We shall see! I am ready for a melt, but not too fast!
ReplyDeleteI've had memories pop up in FB, that show we had no snow by this time in past years, and even a robin appeared in mid-March once. Astronomical spring has little to no relevance here, like you we have to wait until the snow melts, the ground warms, and the trees leaf out before it can be real spring.
ReplyDeleteYou did a good job on your look-back. Yes the weather is always very unpredictable at this time of year. Full blown Wnter one day followed by signs and feelings of Spring the next day only to be followed again by another Winter's day. I kinda think it's like we have 2 Springs. Early Spring now and late Spring in May. Kinda like early Winter from November to December, middle Winter in January and February and late Winter in March.
ReplyDeleteDown here towards the Equator (in Pennsylvania) meteorological spring has arrived with the first flowers in bloom and migrating birds arriving.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, nobody seems to woory about flooding when developers build houses, they just leave it to the homeowners and the municipalities (who could have prevented the problem) to deal with.
We usually get biological spring in April, but it is early this year… So far.
ReplyDeleteHappy Spring even if it is all mixed up this year!
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