Today is the last day of winter.  The snow has melted, leaving only small patches here and there in the parts of the yard that spend their days in the shade.  The witch hazel is a glorious yellow outside my window, its spidery flowers vibrant against the blue sky.  Snowdrops and daffodils have emerged from the soil and are reaching skyward.  The vinca that’s replaced the lawn in the front yard has been green all winter beneath the snow and now it’s finally visible. 

I could go on and on about the end of winter, but my favorite word is “goodbye.”  Sure, there will be snow in the days to come, but (now, don’t laugh) it will be spring snow, and that means it won’t last.  A few years ago, we had quite a snowstorm overnight on March 31^st.  I awoke to a winter wonderland, but by the time I returned home from work around 6:30 that night, the snow was gone.  Spring snow.  Yes, it’s a thing.

So, don’t tell me about the weather forecast for later this week.  It won’t matter in the long run, and the now-brown lawns will love it.  My father used to call snow in the early spring “poor man’s manure” because the lawns all greened up so nicely after the snow melted.  There’s actually truth to that saying and a scientific reason for it.

As snow forms, it collects nitrogen and other nutrients from the atmosphere.  Rain does this, too, but rain is more likely to run off; whereas, as snow melts, there is more time for the moisture and accompanying nutrients to be absorbed by the soil. 

Whatever the weather in the coming days, I’ll be thinking spring and performing spring tasks.  If the sun is shining, I’ll be sweeping sand and grit leftover from this past winter’s ice from the walk and stairs, checking for winter damage, and removing unwelcome volunteer plants before they get big enough to fight back.  By early April, I’ll have moved the bird bath and garden decorations from winter storage outside in anticipation of putting them in place.  On those days when the weather outside is not so welcoming, I’ll be cheering on the plants I’ve started from seed, sorting pots, and working on other projects indoors.  It seems my to-do list grows longer each day (but then, so do the daylight hours—it’s all good). 

Here’s to the first day of spring and its arrival at 5:01 a.m. tomorrow. 

Above: April Fool’s Day 2011, 7:30 a.m.: overnight snowfall a/k/a Mother Nature’s little joke.
Below: April Fool’s Day 2011, 6:30 p.m.: back to our regularly scheduled spring.

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