Nature's Resurrection of Life

Across the Fence #383

Observers of nature are awaiting the resurrection. The snow has slowly retreated, leaving the exposed ground, bare and empty. It’s not a beautiful time of year. March is when we search through the debris of the past year for the first signs of spring and the return of life to the world around us. I like to call it “nature’s resurrection of life.”

As the snow retreats on a sunny, warm day, running water fills the ditches. When we feel the welcome warmth of the sun and hear the sound of running water, it always raises our hopes that spring has finally arrived. Then as quickly as that class tease in high school left you alone and bewildered, the cold winds of March come roaring in, leaving another blanket of snow on the ground. Suddenly spring is nowhere to be found.

March… that yearly tease of a month, that keeps getting our hopes up that spring has finally arrived, and then quickly sends them crashing back to earth and reality. Nature is fickle and is hard to figure out. The resurrection of spring is often delayed.

March is the month of strong, cold winds. They come roaring through the large evergreens with the sound of waves crashing against the shore. Wave after wave arrives with no letup. The bare branches of the hardwood trees scrape against each other with a grinding motion and sound. I love the sound of the wind in the trees. There’s a sense of power and life in the sound.

A walk through the woods may find the first hint of new life emerging from beneath the decaying leaves. The resurrection has begun. It’s a slow process at first, often suffering setbacks as another March snowfall arrives, but once the resurrection process has begun it’s hard to stop it.

For ice fishermen, it’s the time of thin ice and open water. As the ice retreats it opens up other possibilities as fishermen take to their boats and abandon the ice for another year. Even as snow still clings to the northern banks, fishermen pull on their waders, grab their flyrod, and head for the nearest trout stream.

March is the time of change. It closes one door, but opens another. I think of that every time I hear the sound of geese returning. The winter birds begin to disappear, replaced by the returning “snowbirds,” who abandoned us for warmer climates during the winter. We saw our first robins this week. Geese in large numbers, heading north, have been spotted. Red winged blackbirds have returned to the back yard after being AWOL all winter.

The long, dark, nights of winter are giving way to longer days. The sunlight seems to energize us, and like the hibernating animals, people begin to emerge from the warm, comfort of their homes and venture outside again. Life is slowly returning to the frozen north.

I shouldn’t complain. This has been a very mild winter for most of us in this part of the country. But even so, we get tired of the long, dark nights. There was just enough snow to hide the dead grass and broken branches that litter the yard and countryside. Now all the accumulated junk and debris lies exposed for all the world to see. Debris is also defined as the fragmented remains of dead or damaged cells or tissue. That’s about as good a definition of March as I can think of. It exposes the remains of the past year as the snow covering it recedes. March is a drab, brown, junk-strewn world. It will stay that way until the countryside comes alive and the color returns to the cheeks of nature. Perhaps those March winds help pump the life back into the earth… nature’s version of CPR.

March is a wet, dirty month as the ground gives up the frost and turns the bare ground into mud that will suck you in and slow your travels. March is when weight limits are posted on side roads. In years past, deep ruts through the mud where found on most country roads.

Come to think of it, there isn’t much that’s desirable about March. It’s the ugly duckling of months. It’s the relative who comes for a visit and you wonder if they’ll ever leave. It’s the salesman who comes on too strong and you want to show them where the carpenter made the door and don’t let it hit you in the butt on your way out. It’s March Madness and most of your picks get knocked out in the first round. It’s realizing that your taxes are soon due and you haven’t even started on them yet. That’s the month of March.

But, even with all the drabness, unpredictability, mud, and messiness of March, it’s also the month of hope and great expectations. We know that nature is at work below the surface and soon new life and color will emerge from the drab, tangled mess of decay. The days will lengthen, the warm sun will work its magic, April showers will arrive and freshen the earth, and nature’s resurrection will be complete. I’m ready for it.

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