Poor Will's Almanack

Lately, much has been made of the concept of a tipping point. Simply put, such an idea refers to an accumulation of matter, events or thoughts that builds until it causes an irreversible change.

Early this spring, I was working in my greenhouse, pinching back stalky plants, when I accidentally broke off a long stem of a geranium plant.  I placed that stalk in a tall, clear vase half full of water and put on the kitchen table.

If this were the year 2021 instead of 2020, the seventeen-year cicadas would be emerging  all around the park close to where I live. Sixteen years ago, I found them after work when I stopped by the woods and made my way along the path above the river.

This week brings on the collapse of late spring, the accumulation of leafing and flowering overloading the landscape until it is overcome by summer.

This week brings blooming season for sweet Cicely and May apples all along the 40th Parallel throughout the East and Middle Atlantic Region. Mayfly Season begins along the rivers and lakeshores. Weevil Season comes in throughout alfalfa fields. Thrush Season, Baltimore Oriole Season, Catbird Season and Scarlet Tanager Season come to the undergrowth. It’s Bullfrog Season in the swamp, Gray Tree Frog season in the trees and Spitbug Season in the parsnips.

The center of Late Spring is already thickening the canopy over early gardens. Sycamores, Osage, cottonwoods and oaks are leafing out, and white mulberries and buckeyes blossom.

Some days, I take stock of all the things I find happening in the yard. When I do that, the process seems to stop time, placing it in boxes of measurements and names.

I recently came across my old copy of the Bach flower remedies and, browsing through its pages, I was once again attracted to the ideas of the early 20th century homeopath, Dr. Edward Bach, who believed that nature was the source of all healing, that the essence of certain plants and flowers could, together with the right attitude and the body’s own immune system, help to manage disease.

Here on the cusp of April, one might use any number of seasonal markers to imagine the progress of Middle Spring. Beginning with daffodils today in the Ohio Valley, a person could, for instance, say that the road to May was really the road south past fresh honeysuckle leaves, dandelion blossoms, and forsythia flowers, past the blossoming pear trees, redbuds, and crab apple trees of the Carolinas, then the open dogwoods of Georgia, and ending finally with azaleas in New Orleans.

By this week of the year, butterflies can emerge on the warmest days, and I am on the lookout for a particular orange butterfly, a Polygonia, to be exact.