Signs of spring are all around us!

By Steve Edwards

BCJ News

With the arrival of more moderate weather I’ve resumed my daily walks and no matter which direction I go I see more and more signs of spring. I see the Chinook city street crew running the sweeper to remove the materials put down to combat icy roads during the winter. Earlier, for several weeks, I heard the overhead honks of Canada Geese moving from one feeding and resting locale to another. And just recently I saw my first prairie crocus of the season.

Seeing these local signs of a seasonal change got me to thinking about the other places we’ve lived and experienced the joy, and sometimes challenges, of spring. While there are many common signs of spring, probably most notably the appearance of dandelions, there are also some unique signs of spring that vary by region. Here’s a few that come to mind based on having lived in several regions of the country and within the state of Montana.

I’ll begin with Montana…

The first place we lived in Montana was Libby, definitely a mountainous area. I worked as a seasonal worker for the Forest Service and we would begin cleaning the campgrounds and hiking trails about this time of year in anticipation of early campers. Seeing the first early campers and hikers was definitely a sign of spring in that part of the Treasure State.

Less obvious but also a sign of spring, was the “wood hawks” out scouting the forests for dead trees they could cut for firewood. It’s legal to take a dead tree and those trees easiest to access with the drying roads in the forests, were highly sought after. The early wood hawks might be cutting wood for their own use or to sell to others. The term wood hawk was coined back in the day when river steamboats needed huge amounts of wood to fuel their steam engines. Wood hawks would cut the wood, stack it near a river landing and then see that it was properly loaded when a river boat stopped for fuel.

As to signs of spring in our part of Montana, two were mentioned to me just this past week. A friend had gone out early morning to let the horses out to graze and noted, “It sounded like ‘surround sound’ of Meadowlarks doing their mating calls. It was amazing how many of them I could hear at one time.” Another local, stopping to chat outside the post office, said, “The first time I can go fishing without worrying about ice is my main sign of spring.”

If you traveled a main highway recently in this area you likely encountered this sign of spring—large farm implements, especially air seeders, being towed. Or you’ve seen the huge “tote bags” of seed being hauled to farms. And all those new calves frolicking around, definitely a sign of spring on the prairie.

While working at a church camp on Flathead Lake spring there had several distinctive ways of announcing its arrival. First, the ice began to slowly disappear off the bays and inlets. It wasn’t long until random runabouts would begin to appear on the lake and by Memorial Day the lake was alive with visitors and summer residents. And the roads and highways got jammed with people “headed to the lake.”

…and share a few other unique regional signs of spring

A short time living in western Washington introduced us to “Western skunk cabbage,” one of the first wild flowers to bloom, sometimes appearing as early as February. Not surprisingly, this plant takes its name from its distinctive odor—like a skunk. While the smell tends to repel mammals, including humans, its smell attracts many beneficial insects, especially pollinators. The plant grows to about two feet tall, has waxy leaves and the western variety shows a bright yellow flower. Skunk cabbage thrives in swampy, damp areas and can be seen in low areas along roadways and hiking paths, announcing spring is coming soon.

Growing up in southern Illinois I recall a unique sign of spring that came from my paternal grandmother. She was a farm wife all her life and an avid vegetable and flower gardener. On Valentines Day, no matter the weather, she would sow leaf lettuce seeds. She once said when I asked about snow or frozen ground, “Oh, as the snow melts and the ground thaws the tiny seeds find their way and sprout. There’s no need to till the ground for leaf lettuce.”

A couple of years in Appalachia also produced some folksy signs of spring. Like many regions, the first showing of a robin was a sign of spring in the mountains. But whether you saw the first robin “above you or below you” was important. If you saw your first robin on the ground, beware, you could suffer a lot of illnesses in the coming year. A first robin spotted flying above was a sign of a good year to come.

Where we lived in rural North Dakota was mostly grain farming. A first sign of spring there was the state highway department posting signs regarding seasonal load weight and speed restrictions along rural paved roads. At the hardware store in the little town where we lived the morning coffee drinkers, mostly farmers, would discuss in great detail the best routes to get a loaded grain truck to the elevator without getting on paved roads with restricted weights. That was a sure sign of spring in the Red River Valley.

So, dear readers, you likely have your own first signs of spring. Whatever the signs you are expecting to herald spring, enjoy the new season. Which reminds me, I think I noticed The Creamery (ice cream shop in Chinook on US 2) just opened. That’s one of my favorite signs of spring!