By: Jefferson Weaver
I sat on the steps of the old store, welcoming the promise of March.
The ill-tempered car was awaiting a tender hand in the yard, and a buddy was kind enough to offer me a ride. When I thanked him profusely, he said that’s just what friends do; for me, March is a friend, a friend welcomed home after a long absence.
I have never made any bones about my disgust with February, and it seemed that foul month was determined to hang on even after the calendar flipped and what some Indians called the Moon of Little Frogs shone brightly in a crisp sky.
This morning however, started with a light fog covering the pines like the lighter blanket Miss Rhonda had thrown across the bed, since the old reliables of winter were just too hot. The fog burned off after a short spell, and it seemed the entire world came back to life.
As I sat waiting for my friend, I was in a peculiar position to watch the grove of pines and oaks across from our house. It’s a spot that’s rarely hunted, since Neighbor Rickey keeps a close eye on it, and most of our hunt club neighbors have bigger woods to hunt. When the wind is right, audacious coyotes sit across the highway and yap while I’m skinning the day’s catch, but that’s a winter activity. Now they’re content to trade insults with Walter the Yard Dog, albeit at inopportune hours.
No coyotes were hollering this morning, however, although I had heard the plaintive cry of a late, lovelorn bobcat as the fog lifted, followed by the philosophical response of our resident great horned owl.
As I sat enjoying the early sun, waving at passersby as if I had as much common sense as good manners, a pair of gray squirrels argued with the stridence of fishwives. They were debating the rights of a big black fox squirrel, a handsome fellow with a white mask, who lay straddling a young pine limb. He was pointedly ignored them. Aristocracy is above the petty squabbles of the common folk, he seemed to be saying as he munched away on breakfast. The grays finally worked themselves into enough of a frenzy that they dashed from their respective trees and sent the interloper packing. It wasn’t his side of town, anyway, since he belonged in the longleaf pines down the way.
The jonquils and daffodils lining the road to the old cemetery, as well as those in my yard that somehow manage to survive Sam the Pig’s irrepressible snout, were in their full glory, both in delicate off-white and screaming, brazen gold that defied February’s attempts to refreeze everything and ruin the spring. Although my beloved ancient dogwood fell several years ago, its numerous progeny were beginning to bud in earnest (thanks in part I am sure, to the industry of the cousins to the quarrelsome squirrels I had been watching.)
It amazes me, when the last of the Hunger Moon fades and things can eat again, how critters that just a few days ago were paranoid were perfectly willing to ignore me on this morning of the Moon of Little Frogs. I made no particular effort to sit especially still, but quietly sipped my coffee, talked to God a little and thanked Him for a beautiful day.
One critter whose paranoia never abates is the wild turkey, and I was shocked and happily surprised to hear a big gobbler spouting off. It took a few minutes of watching and listening, but I finally spotted him, slowly marching along, feasting on the early bugs and greens of the timbered-out ghost of a forest. He was a loquacious bird, and if his ego is echoed by his voice, I doubt he’ll last through the first day of hunting season.
On this day, however, he was safe, unless one of Walter’s enemies decided that somebody was creating an awful racket for first thing in the morning, and that somebody would fit well in a hungry belly. Overhead, one of our resident vultures persevered that something, somewhere nearby would do him a favor and die. Thankfully, he was out of luck.
On the way home that evening, I rolled down the window of the borrowed truck, enjoying the slight chill that still held on, since Spring is a lady, and not one to easily give up all her secrets so early in the relationship with a new year. The day had been warm, though, warm enough to awaken the first of the green carpet that will soon cover our fields faster than our horses can eat it. The foster filly, Ellie, was cavorting in the pasture when I pulled in, and even grumpy Old Red seemed in a slightly less foul mood than usual. Ellie smelled of hay and grass and sunshine and happiness, her mane and tail a tangled mess that would leave Miss Rhonda despondent as a young mother whose toddler has ridden every fast ride at the fair, without so much as a hair ribbon.
The now-tired sun was barely holding when I spotted movement across an area mown flat by the horses. Long ears, big hind feet, and a comical white button flashed as a rabbit bounced toward a blackberry bramble and waited. The bunny’s companion, came out moments later, and the two began a half-waltz, half-boxing match, standing on their hind legs. Whoever coined the term “rabbit dancing” was as prosaic as they were practical, since it looked like nothing more than two happy friends dancing in the last of the daylight as an early-risen moon refused to let the landscape get truly dark.
I still had the windows down — after all, it’s spring, darn it – and as I passed across one swamp of the other, I heard the chorus I’d been waiting for: not a symphony, but a cacophony whose melody needs no formal harmony or meter, no accompaniment or conductor.
The peepers were out in force, celebrating their own survival through frozen mud and questing, digging predators, and their voices rose as high as the gibbous moon filtering through the pines.
They were welcoming the return of warmer weather, and saying farewell to February, as well they should have been, since it was another evening of the Moon of Little Frogs. Spring was finally more than just a dreamt-of story, but a promise bursting to bloom in all of God’s glory, the promise of March.
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