Notes from my Knapsack 3-15-18
Jeff Gill
An amazing spectacle never to be seen again
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Robins spend the whole winter in these parts now.
Some of that is global climate change shifting the zone boundaries north for what birds can or will tolerate, and some of it is the number of bird-feeders and available habitat, but it's no longer true that you should look for "the first robin of spring."
But whole families of robins? Maybe so. The snow buntings have started to pass through in the spring migration back north; meadowlarks and song sparrows are on their way across the Raccoon Creek valley, and phoebes, wrens, and warblers can't be far behind.
The red-shouldered hawks are easy to see in the still-barren tree branches, but the maples on my street are starting to bud. I watch for the lively explosion of litter onto the sidewalks and driveways when the buds are shoved aside to fall to the ground, for the extension of new life into the still frosty air.
Orion is starting to edge over closer to sunset after dark; the mornings just got shorter and the evenings longer thanks to daylight saving time, which isn't really my preferred choice. It does increase the odds, though, that some night soon on my way home I'll get out of the car and sniff grilled meats on the air – there's always a few intrepid souls upwind who get an early start on cooking out. I'm rarely home soon enough to try it, but I respect the chefs and enjoy the smells as a sign as sure as a crocus or daffodil.
From spotting the green spears through the worn mulch of last year to the trip down to the garden center for a new mower blade, the rituals of springtime are familiar, and fairly constant. Yet I am certain that every spring is just a little bit different . . . no, a great deal in difference from year to year, from where I sit or stroll.
Winter is a great enemy of outdoor exercise, just the round the block stroll let alone a jog or bike ride, but longer days and warmer evenings should make an opportunity for many of us. We get out, multitudes on the bike paths through our village, but other trails invite and welcome, to see the natural world a little closer up.
They keep doing studies to prove it, but there's not much we don't already know. From old adages like "stop and smell the roses" (give them time) to our gut level knowledge about the effects of sunshine on our faces, we are aware that nature has a healing effect on body and mind and spirit. Wandering the Bioreserve that Denison tends for us, hiking up Sugar Loaf where Scouts and the community have worked for years to keep a path winding around to the summit and the boulder monument there, or even down to creekside and subtle trails that ignore property lines, maintained by deer hooves and a few bold boots, we feel something calming, something soothing.
Or just a gentle, unhurried stroll around your house, not so much to look for the tasks undone (which are legion) but to the signs indeed of life. Where the soil and seeds and stirrings all around are a springtime show like no other before, and none other that will ever come again.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him what Mother Nature is up to in your neck of the woods at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
