Symptoms of Spring Fever
We’ve had a long spell of super cold temperatures again this winter. It’s normal here in the Canadian prairies. But it has held on now for a long stretch of weeks, and I’m looking for signs of spring. It’s like a fever. My father who is 87 often sighs too, “I wish spring would come!”
We know it will. We’re just impatient now. So we watch for clues that it’s just about here.
Just in case you’re not sure if you’ve ever had it, here is what you watch for.
Like, I check the thermometer in the mornings when I get to the kitchen, and it is a few degrees warmer than the day before.
I go for my walk and note that the air doesn’t ring every sound as if it’s a crystal bell any more. The air seems softer, moister. The snow under my feet has a more soggy texture instead of the sharp cutting, crunching sound at each step.
Look! That naked tree just dumped a clump of snow off its branch!
Listen; that’s a crow! So I scan around and - there! Right behind the store, is a big black bird, the size of a young chicken, and it is cawing as if calling for someone.
Over the next day or two the temperatures come higher, and suddenly one afternoon, they creep above freezing, at 0C!
Now I’m almost giddy on my walk, pulling my feet up out of the sucking, soggy wet snow at each step, and looking around for any bare patch where the sun has melted the snow through to the street or the grass.
Hark! I’ll hear the sounds of dripping. So I look for the corners of houses where the eaves trove ends are, and sure enough, water drips. At night they will be frozen icicles, but the next day they will melt again, and in a day or so, the sound will be like a bubbling brook.
Dad always puts some rain barrels at the bottom of the downspout by our back door, and he measures the progress of spring by whether he got a whole, or half or three-quarter full barrel each day.
During the winter whenever people meet or talk on the phone they discuss the temperatures on their own thermometer. (Not all are tuned quite right). Now it turns to, “I saw two crows today!”
Very proud is the one who can say, “I was in the back pasture today and saw . . . .
Read the rest of this article here; Spring Fever