March is the month of mud — not quite winter and not quite spring. For Ohio, it can bring along every weather type imaginable. As temperatures slowly moderate and winter fades, it ensures a soft surface everywhere but concrete and pavement.
We bounce from sub-freezing to 60 degrees F in a few hours and can suffer rain, snow and sunshine in the same day — all while streams and rivers invade low-lying land and roads.
Walking across a farm field results in carrying half of it adhered to your boots. Don’t get me started on the whole daylight saving thing.
March is the “between” month, struggling to find its own individuality. The waning winter lingers on the back porch while spring dawdles at the front, casually timing its entry.
March does indeed suffer an identity dilemma. “In like a lion, out like a lamb” offers only one sure bet: both of those creatures will be a muddy mess.
Prep time
It’s “make work” time for sportsmen and women. We clean and secure our hunting gear, un-tarp boats, spool fishing reels with fresh line and organize our tackle, which will within months be in shambles from our trips on the water.
Spotting scopes and binoculars are cleaned and readied for spring’s bird migrations while trail camera photos are reviewed for hopeful hints about how our wildlife neighbors spend their time.
Farmers finish their maintenance on ground-working equipment, and they double check seed orders while the rest of us sharpen mower blades and store snow shovels.
We might attend a sports show or attend neglected club meetings while we wait for the doldrums to pass, but that fidgety restlessness persists.
And as we wait for spring to bring us running walleyes and popping morels, March continues to offer only mud. The ground, still too cool to support rapid growth, becomes saturated while its depths slowly thaw.
Late snows don’t last long, with its remnants looking like piles of dirty laundry, all being joined by gray-skied tears that create a mire of brown soup we step around and hop over. The days feel bleak and we can’t wait for the grass to green.
Promises of March
If it sounds as if I don’t like the month of March, you’d be mistaken. While I can’t avoid the mud, there are promises in the rain, the cold nights and slowly warming days that are hard for me to overlook: the crocuses waiting to greet April’s Dutchman’s breeches, Mayflowers and trillium.
That first boss turkey declaring his territory with his early morning pronouncement will soon draw me to sit with my back against a tree to watch and wait. A robin’s chirping and returning redwings swinging on marsh cattails remind me that bluebirds and warblers are on their way and that timberdoodles will again be dancing in the night sky.
The sometimes threatening rising and falling rivers signal that the vaunted Lake Erie walleye are beginning to stage along the reefs and river mouths for their historic spawning activities.
The wingbeats of returning waterfowl whisper of journeys far away from their ancestral homes and their yearning to return. The crack of thunder and fresh scent of ozone clinging to the breeze brings an assurance of lush woodlands and bountiful crops. Yes, March brings mud, impatience, a bit of boredom and an anxiousness for change…but not for all of us.
They get it. It seems that kids and dogs are impervious to the mud of March. They see it as just another welcomed change of nature’s playgrounds. Neither can pass a puddle without a good splash. The mud itself is for making pies or for tossing. Their canine friends joyfully join them, using it as an impromptu bathtub or to roll in the heavenly aromas only their noses can appreciate.
Together, they ignore the fact that they should be miserable in that quagmire — finding the joy hidden in its sticky mess — even if it means they both might have to share a shower stall before falling exhausted, side-by-side on the living room floor.
The month of March is much like those kids and dogs: It’s the “between” month, struggling to find its own individuality. Not quite winter and not quite spring, anxiously dreaming of the arrival of endless summers and autumn leaves. It labors to find its place.
Kids and dogs seem to understand this, proving it with a splashing enthusiasm as they follow the month’s slow stroll toward change. Together, they still understand how to find joy in the moment — in those things they cannot control. That, I suppose, is the true wisdom of March.
“Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.”
— Lewis Grizzard
