While out for a walk the other day, I looked up into the tops of a few maples and noticed the swollen leaf buds, harboring new life that will become part of the new season’s canopy. And twice now I’ve caught the scent of a skunk, which means that they’re already on the move, hunting out places to have their young, places that are not too far removed from food sources. And when I sit down with my dinner around 5 p.m. each day, I notice the light lingering longer through the bare trees.

Beneath the deep snow cover and the layer of cold still air hanging over the earth’s surface, life is quickening as the submerged parts of plants start to re-awaken and tiny organisms are even now tunneling through the soil ready to partner with their roots to make the earth more fertile and friable. There has also been a decidedly optimistic change in the bird songs I hear each day as well. Whereas all I’ve heard till now are the plaintive monotone cries of these tiny creatures as they huddle in the tops of the densest pines seeking warmth and shelter, now I hear their happier songs as they glide through the warming atmosphere. Yes, the nights are still cold, but with the lengthening daylight hours come the additional warmth which appears to be just what these creatures need to emerge from their winter doldrums.

The crows are more active now, too. During the last few months, what scraps I’ve tossed over the back slope are usually gone by morning, with nothing left for my daytime feeders. But I’m hearing the crows’ distinctive call earlier each day now, another sign that things are starting to happen, and I love watching them scoot across the snow’s crust in search of a treat.

A glance at the calendar tells me that a mere few weeks stand between me and the high-pitched cries of the first peepers, a song I myself quicken to each spring. I’ve heard them as early as the first week of March here and as late as mid-April, but each year, I start thinking of it about now, when it feels like winter will never end and spring is just something to be seen on gardening magazine pages. And it’s interesting to note how long the snow cover lingers some years as opposed to others when it’s gone by before the first official day of spring. My first year here, I was out in March, assembling raised garden beds which I placed on the hard bare ground. But in subsequent years, I never saw the first crocus until early May when the last wisps of snow finally disappeared into the earth. And last year, the snow on the north side of the garage didn’t completely melt until mid-May.

Nowhere else are the seasons more pronounced than in these wooded places, here where little is disturbed by human hands and where nature works her magic sometimes slowly and methodically, and other times, swiftly and with breathtaking majesty. There is little to distract here from the sight of a bare branch clothing itself anew in green, or from the song of the chickadees, which is, I think, their way of exhaling now that winter is nearly once again behind them.

— Rachel Lovejoy is a freelance writer living in Lyman. She can be reached via e-mail at rlovejoy84253@roadrunner.com