The mud squelched between my bare toes; it was cold, but not uncomfortably so.
The pollen was rising, and I sneezed into the morning, startling one of the resident cardinals as he ravaged some of the leftover chicken scratch. He fluttered a few feet and gave me a dirty look, then panicked as Paula the Huntress dashed across the yard. He foiled Paula’s plans for a pre-breakfast snack, so she stalked away, heading to the ditch where the first frogs of the season had sung the night away.
It was chilly enough in the dawn that I was thankful for my heavy old sweater, but with the dawn came a farewell to the hated February and a welcome to March, the Month of Mud, Fat Worms, Grass Greening and the promise of spring.
March is a month of change – spring rains and wildfires, cold gray clouds broken by sweating sunny days, beautiful afternoons and terrible storms.
Basketball is but a memory, and the diamonds are manicured again as the last civilized sport begins. With no aspersions cast on soccer and volleyball, baseball and to an extent softball are still the royalty of American sports, and March is when the kings and queens of swat promenade onto the fields to the National Anthem and the smell of hot dogs.
March was always when I could finally talk my father into stealing a few hours of a weekend afternoon to go fishing, although I am sure he spent at least some of that fishin’ time napping in the sunshine. As I have attained the age now that he was then, I understand even more of his wisdom in that practice.
The fish are awakening in earnest by March, with crappie and perch and bass defending their nests, bending a limber pole almost in half. The first real catfish are moving with real interest, seeking an unfortunate shiner or particularly smelly chunk of liver. And that fish which carries all the bones God had left over at creation, the ubiquitous shad, swarm up the rivers with bellies full of roe destined for a generations-old frying pan hot with grease, preferably warmed over a fire of dry oak beside a riverbank where the night creatures call and the owls mourn.
March is the Month of Fat Worms, when they work their way to the surface if the ground is wet, writhing and wiggling, seeking mates. A few unlucky ones lose out on adding to the gene pool by being dropped into a coffee can of rich earth and old coffee grounds for fishing bait. Most will make their way back underground before dawn, but those that don’t make it become easy pickin’s for our robins, thus proving the old saw about early birds and worms.
I saw the first official bird of spring on the first day of March; a tom turkey was making his solemn way across a field perhaps staking territory for when the battles royale begin in April and May. Turkey season doesn’t start for more than a month, but March is the time for things to be prepared, and the big tom was wasting no time preparing for a big spring of gobbles, clucks and warbles.
March is when I no longer fuss about not having time to hunt, but instead watch the first babies of the year peep from hollow trees and intricate masses of leaves and limbs.
It is a month of baby things; the February kittens gain their eyes and toddle importantly around the porch, the puppies tumble and roll, and little tragedies bring baby squirrels and birds and possums for my wife to nurture and raise until they can be released on their own. The first baby goats for the year will drop, and the yard will be filled with the sounds of “Maa-MAA!” when they get separated from their worried mothers.
Our chickens Sara and Samson haven’t shown signs of starting a family, so we will likely end up bringing home a box of peeping Rhodies or other chicks that will eventually end up following Sarah and Sam like they were born under her wide wings. Markie the Goose stood tall and honked back at a passing Canada gander the other day; whether she was suggesting a romantic partnership or warning him away I could not tell, but she is acting “nesty” again. Plans are to get her a few goslings of her own to raise, as soon as the pen is finished.
I no longer have horses or donkeys, which is sad in a way, as so many of our old steeds would have been enraptured by the thick grass growing green and full in the old pasture. Now it’s just lackadaisically tended by the goats, who are more interested in the red buds and young blackberry shoots and tender limbs of white oak. Green grass makes for happy, healthy horses, and March was when our oldest mare and even older gelding would be young again for a little while, enjoying a thorough roll that scratched away many of the winter’s itches.
March is the time when weekends stay busy – fences to fix, move or expand, the aforementioned new pen to finish, and a dozen other chores that went by the wayside with the early sunsets, cold rain and frozen fingers of January and February.
It is the time when the first flowers riot, the daffodils and jonquils having already made their presence known, scouting the weather for to follow. The iris and rose of Sharon will begin to bud later in the month, along with the daffodil and tulip poplar, welcoming the “official” first day of spring when they see fit. The stalwart dandelions never really quit, but just slowed down for the winter. Soon my beloved Chosen Granddaughter will be bringing me handfuls of yellow blooms, and perhaps we’ll even blow the mature ones so the seedlings make miniature snowstorms that will produce more “weeds” in the months to come.
March brings us closer to that most special of holidays, as we celebrate Resurrection Day on April 5. Christ’s resurrection was like the new growth in spring, showing the cold and death of winter that it had no power. From the secular angle, it’s a time for lighter suits for men and pretty dresses on prettier girls, hats and little kids chasing Easter eggs hidden more or less in plain sight. It’s a time for families and fellowship, and casting off the last doldrums of winter.
But first there is the joy of March, with its sometimes fickle but warming weather, days that slowly warm until you realize you’ve worked up a sweat, when the first gardens go in, sleeves get rolled and skirts get shorter, children have time after school to run and laugh,
March is a time for fires of an evening, flowers of a morning, and the promise of spring to come all day long.
