Actually, it’s a bit late.

Here’s how my spring countdown unfolds, beginning with …

Imbolc, Feb. 1. This traditional Gaelic observance marks the mid-point of winter, halfway between the winter solstice (Dec. 21) and the spring equinox (March 20).

Daffodil. I can’t call this the first wildflower of the season because the daffodil is an ornamental, embraced by early settlers because as soon as its cheery yellow leaves popped through the ground, they knew spring was nigh. Note: when you see a daffodil in the wild there’s a good chance you’ll find signs of an old homestead nearby. Weather dependent, the daffodil generally makes its first appearance between the last week of January and the second week of February.

Spring peeper. To me, this chorus frog is typically the first legitimate — that is, natural — sign of spring. They spend the winter hunkered down near a vernal pool — a depression that typically only contains water during the winter rains. A good rain coupled with warming weather rouses the spring peeper. I’ve heard spring peepers as early as mid-January; this year, my first “hearing” was on Feb. 17.

February 10. Pitchers and catchers report. When I was in second grade at Bellview Elementary school I spent an entire music class staring out the window at a ball diamond painted in grays and browns; would I ever again see the lush green outfield that had disappeared in October? The only thing that kept me going was a small blurb I’d read that morning in the Denver Post: “Pitchers and Catchers report today.” This year, pitchers and catchers, the first baseball players to start training for the upcoming season, reported on Feb. 10.

February 20. First spring training games of the season. Nothing says spring more than listening to a Rockies game from Salt River Fields in Arizona on the app.

Trout lilies, spring beauties.  Like pitchers and catchers, these are typically the first wildflowers we see report for spring in the Piedmont. Their appearance depends entirely on sunlight and warmth: I’ve seen both as early as Jan. 27, I’ve seen them as late as, well, as now (still waiting). Blame the lingering winter weather — but this weekend, with sun and temperatures in the 60s forecast, keep an eye peeled for both, especially in floodplains dominated by hardwoods.

March 8. Daylight Saving Time begins. Not coming home in the dark really makes it feel like spring.

March 20. The spring equinox, when there’s as much daylight as dark, marks the official start of spring.

Let the countdown begin!

The post From Imbolc to Equinox appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

I’ll remember my three hikes over the weekend as such: long stretches of brown interrupted by flashes of the wrong kind of green, the less frequent wrong patches of white and one inspiring — but again, wrong — flash of yellow.
My objective on the trail this past weekend? Find signs of spring.
Ambitious, considering snow, ice and cold had dominated late winter until early last week. Then one 75 degree day, another in the 60s and — consarn it! — where’s spring? According to Carrboro naturalist Dave Cook and his “The Piedmont Almanac,” as early as the third week of February, “the first trout lilies and spring beauties might adventurously bloom” on slopes with southern exposures. By this, the second week of March, Cook writes, we should expect to see trout lilies in their “full glory.” Cook offers a caveat: your results may vary depending upon the weather.
Since second grade, I’ve avidly watched for the first signs of spring, though the cues have changed over the years. Beginning in early February I would rush home after school to rip open the sports section of The Denver Post, then an afternoon paper, and look for the first box score of spring training. Just seeing the early at-bats of Harmon Killebrew and Moose Skowran made me feel 10

degrees warmer — and realize that if it was warm enough to play baseball in Florida and Arizona, the grass would soon be greening in Colorado.
I still get a tingle hearing that pitchers and catchers have reported, but my new bellwethers for spring is rooted in nature: the first delicate yellow blooms of the trout lily, its petals resembling a preacher imploring his congregation to rise, the spring beauty, its cluster of tiny white and sometimes pink-tinged petals like Lilliputian satellite dishes.
Because of their numbers, the spring beauty is easier to spot. The trout lily is more reclusive, and because it stands just a half foot expends most of its height simply poking through winter’s leaf litter.
Several years back, near the end of a winter thaw, I tried to get Mike Dunn, naturalist extraordinaire now retired from the N.C. Museum of Natural Science, to head out to Umstead with me in search of trout lilies. I figured Mike would be in; every January he drops whatever he’s doing when the first warm rain of the year falls and acts as safety patrol for salamanders crossing the road in his Redbud neighborhood above the Haw River.
“It’s January,” he said. By his tone I knew not to pursue the matter.
So Saturday and Sunday, on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail along Falls Lake, along the Eno River between Pleasant Green and Pump Station, at Umstead State Park, I kept my eyes glued to the forest floor. I saw the blue flower of a thistle (I once posted a photo of such and received the ire of a purist who noted that, one, it was a weed, and two, it was not a native species). I spotted a lovely yellow bloom of daffodils (an ornamental I can’t take seriously thanks to Bullwinkle)  just down the hill from a long-abandoned homestead, and I heard the encouraging, and the same time melancholy, call of the chorus frog.
Signs of spring, granted. But not the resounding crack-of-the-bat, spring-is-here assurance offered by the trout lily and spring beauty. Like a pitcher waiting on his catcher, I wait for spring to send me the right sign.

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GetHiking! A Welcome to Spring

Interested in searching for signs of spring? Join us for A Welcome to Spring, a new GetHiking! program that starts March 25 and runs through May 20. Every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m., we will hike a different trail in the North Raleigh/Wake Forest area searching for signs of spring. To assist in this effort you’ll get a weekly enewsletter that, in addition to providing helpful hiking tips and resources, and a recap of the previous week’s hike, will include a preview of the upcoming hike focusing on the newest emerging sign of spring we’re likely to see.

Learn more about this fee program and sign up for GetHiking! A Welcome to Spring by visiting GetHiking! Triangle.

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