Mud

“Mud in March means a hay crop in June,” wrote my friend, Garnet Perman. Her essay, Evolution of a Ranch Wife, is printed in the anthology, Leaning into the Wind. We haven’t had a muddy March in a few years. For several springs, we’ve seen a lot more dust blowing than snow blowing. Even this year, we didn’t have much mud in March. But April 3 brought a heavy, wet snow, the sort that I remember coming around the spring equinox in my childhood years. Not a blizzard, just a foot or so of snow that settled down across the prairie. Most of us in the northern plains quickly weary of winter. We are ready for the sunshine to warm the earth, ready for the birds to return, ready for spring. This year, the birds came early. Robins. Meadowlarks. Blackbirds. Killdeer. Even the mourning doves arrived well before the end of March. What does it mean? What do the birds know that we do not? What can we learn from watching in awe as the seasons shift, blending, overlapping, sometimes going “back” ...