The Long, Slow Turn to Spring

A while ago, I did a series on the practice of noticing¹. For the past few weeks, I have been noticing the long, slow turn to Spring occuring. In Michigan, it takes some time for spring to come. But there are always the early signs around us. Here’s what I’m noticing,

The birds are singing. Winter is so silent. Bird song is an early sign of spring

The skunks are out. Winter usually doesn’t smell bad, but once the skunks out, early spring is “fragrant”

Birds that were scarce over the winter are starting to come around, although the Canada Geese haven’t come home yet.

The earliest buds are out. The Lilac bubs are out. A very few other trees have buds.

Woodland crocus ( I think?) are out.

The air has shifted. The cold “bite” is mostly gone and the air, while still cold is “softer”.

The days are definitely longer and sunnier. From mid December to the end of January we only had sun 8% of the time! We only have about 9 hours of potential daylight per day in January at best. That works out to about 22 hours of sun for the entire month. This is why we look so closely for signs of spring.

It’s only mid March. We have two and a half months until we are safely past any more frosts. It will still be cold. We will likely have another snow or two. But the worst of winter is over.

I hope…

What are you noticing where you are?

1. In case you want to read it, it begins here, https://conversationinfaith.com/2023/09/05/the-practice-of-noticing/ ↩︎