Posts from March, 2009:

The Spring Thaw

· Posted by Joshua in Nature

March is the most hideous month of the year in Wisconsin. When the snow melts, it reveals Winter’s dirty secrets. Everything that Winter had killed, frozen, and buried now reappears; it thaws and rots in the first warmth of spring like a corpse unearthed and set before the sun. The grass on every hillside turns a dull and sickly yellow, the branches reach out as bare as bones, and every footstep is mired in mud. It is all for the sake of a coming resurrection, and soon the fields and forests will live again in splendor. It just takes time. Spring will not be hurried in making its miracles. Meanwhile, even March conceals a trace of beauty for those curious enough to look. As evidence…

I. Snow shrinks before a blue sky near the forest’s edge, where grass will soon be greening:

Blue Sky over the Forest's Edge

II. Last year’s apples still hang in their leafless branches, shriveled and rotting. These might not put Snow White to sleep, but they would probably give her a stomachache:

Last Year's Apples still hang rotting in the tree

III. Sunlight pierces the woods, undaunted by as-yet leafless tree-limbs, and maple trunks stand like the pillars of an ancient ruin:

Bare tree limbs are silhouetted in the sunlight

IV. Moss grows at the foot of an old stump while melting snow glimmers in the sunlight:

Moss grows at the foot of an old stump while melting snow glimmers in the sunlight

V. Boulders stand by while a stream of meltwater sweeps beneath sheets of thawing ice:

A trickle of meltwater forges its way past boulders and sheets of ice.