Nature's Notebook Catch Up

It's been a while since I posted links to my biweekly Nature's Notebook column in the Lakeville Journal (readable in the opinion section here with free registration.  A fair use excerpt from today's article:

"One must stay curious and alert to the progression of “firsts” in spring.  Let your mind wander to worldly cares, and the morels come and go by the wayside.

Not only species but individuals have their own timetables in spring. One gravid snapping turtle may heave up out of the swamp and make her ponderous way across the road in search of the right spot for her nest, while another hesitates. One Jack-in-the-pulpit in my garden emerges and blooms several weeks before another not 3 feet distant under nearly identical growing conditions...

...My wildflower beds are gaining complexity and character like fine wine as they mature. I like my wildflowers feral, volunteering in new spaces and growing amid and around each other as they will. I delight when the bluebells disappear from one spot and reappear somewhere else. I scatter seed and deliberate before dividing. I find blue-eyed grass where none had been before. I expect and combat this tendency in weeds, but celebrate it in wildflowers...

...A new garden is all about patience and expectancy, in a time of no blight and no drought and months to go before the tomatoes are fat on the vine. The growing season may last through September, or finish with a hard frost soon after Labor Day.

We have what the moment offers, when it is ready, when we are ready."