Seasonal Celebrations

The last (calendrical) week of winter was full of commemorations and celebrations. Monday was Pi (π) Day – 3/14, which corresponds to π, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, which is 3.14159 . . . We celebrated with pie, of course. Hannah made us a Toll House pie. Out at BYU-I, Josiah, who is a physics major and is far nerdier than we are, marked the more complete observance of the day at 3/14 1:59 PM. He made a number of pies including an impressive spherical one.

Josiah's π-Day pies.

His spherical pie.

Tuesday was the Ides of March. In the ancient Roman calendar, the Ides of March was the annual deadline for settling debts and was celebrated with picnics, drinking, and revelry. I don’t think anyone actually celebrates it anymore. It is most famous as the date in 44 BC on which Julius Caesar was assassinated. A seer had warned Caesar to beware the Ides of March. On his way to the Theater of Pompey on that day, Caesar passed the seer and joked, “Well, the Ides of March are come”, implying that the prophecy hadn’t been fulfilled, to which the seer replied “Yes, they are come, but they are not gone.” As he entered the building, Caesar was stabbed to death by 60 senatorial conspirators. His famous last words as he fell were “Et tu, Brute?” (And you, Brutus?) as his friend and confidant, Marcus Junius Brutus, plunged in his dagger. We didn’t do anything special to commemorate the day other than mention its significance.

Caesar on the Ides of March.

The Jewish festival of Purim was on Wednesday and Thursday. It commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, the wicked official in the court of the Persian King Ahasuerus, who plotted to have all of Persia’s Jews killed. The Jews observe four main mitzvot (obligations) on Purim: reading the Book of Esther, sending gifts of food to friends, giving charity to the poor, and eating a festive meal. The story of Purim is told in the Book of Esther in the Old Testament. In Hebrew the Book of Esther is called the Megillah and the entire book is read twice over the two days of celebration. That double reading is the source for the idiom “the whole Megillah.” Because the Book of Esther is especially long and complicated (ten chapters), any long and complicated story came to be called the gantse Megillah in Yiddish, which translates as “the whole Megillah.” On Purim the Jews also have masquerades, put on plays, and sing special songs to celebrate the day. Not being Jewish, we at our house limited our celebration to the food part, of course. We made hamentaschen (Haman’s pockets), triangular pastries filled with raisin-date jam and almond paste and Miriam made challah, braided egg bread.

Queen Esther.

Our hamantaschen and challah bread.

Thursday was St. Patrick’s Day. Saint Patrick lived during the fifth century and is the patron saint of Ireland. He was born in Roman Britain, but was kidnapped and brought to Ireland as a slave at the age of 16. He later escaped, but returned to Ireland and is credited with bringing Christianity to its people. He died on March 17, 461 AD. On St. Patrick’s Day, all over the world wherever the Irish have settled, there are parades and other activities to celebrate all things Irish. In Ireland the day used to be a mostly religious holiday. The biggest secular celebrations actually began among the Irish immigrants in the United States. New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Savannah all have big St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. In Chicago they dye the river green. Our celebration focused on food, of course. Miriam baked a delicious loaf of Irish soda bread for us. My side of the family doesn’t have any Irish ancestry, but Stacey’s great-great-great-grandmother, Jane McDonnell, was born in Antrim, Ireland, in 1822. Even so, on St. Patrick’s Day everyone is a little Irish.

St. Patrick.

Friday was the last full moon of winter, which, according to folklore, is called the Worm Moon because of the earthworms that come out as the soil warms up. Eastern Native American tribes called it the Sap or Sugar Moon because the maple sap is running. The Celts called it the Wind Moon and the Plow Moon. I went out just before sunrise on Friday to admire the moon. It was gorgeous and bright setting behind the hill above us. It was a cold morning, 30°. As for it being the Worm Moon or the Plow Moon, it’s still a bit early for worms or for plowing here. The ground hasn’t thawed out yet. I think Sap Moon is a more appropriate appellation for Gold. The sap is running.

The Sap Moon setting on Friday morning.

Today is also a day of commemoration. At 11:33 AM, we arrived at the Vernal Equinox. Spring has officially begun! There were many signs and portents of spring last week, most of them avian. We’ve seen robins and red-winged black birds for several weeks now. The grackles are back now too. On Monday there were tundra swans (Cygnus columbianus) on the Waterwheel Pond in Colesburg. Stacey, Miriam, and Hannah saw them on their way to work in the morning. As soon as school was out, I raced down there, hoping they would still be there, and they were. We see tundra swans some years, but not often, and it’s always exciting when they stop here on their way north. On Wednesday, while I was working in the orchard, I heard and then saw the first killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) of the year.

Tundra swans in Colesburg.

Killdeer (not my photo).

The turkey vultures have also returned. We saw the first one last Sunday and many more since then. When I was a child and we lived in Eastern Ohio (Tallmadge and then Ravenna), there was a place nearby, the town of Hinckley in Medina County, that was famous for its celebration of the return of the turkey vultures in the spring. They called them (still do) “buzzards” which is incorrect. Turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) are a new world species, while common buzzards (Buteo buteo) are an old world species in the hawk family. In the hills around Hinckley, people gather on March 15th and start watching for the “buzzards”. Their official celebration this year, the 65th Annual Buzzards Day, is today. This year the first buzzard at Hinckley was spotted at 9:05 AM on March 15th. We beat them by a few days. We saw ours on March 13th at around 12:30 PM. Seeing them makes me happy. They arrive and start cleaning up all the road kill that has accumulated over the winter. They have rather homely faces, but they are magnificent birds with wingspans that can reach six feet across.

Turkey vulture (not my photo).

With the coming of Friday’s Sap Moon, we are just finishing up this year’s maple syrup season. Miriam worked every day last week at Wending Creek’s sugar shack. On Monday and Tuesday I was in school for the Ag teacher and those classes were also boiling sap. The students tapped the trees in the forest behind the school and collected the sap. The school has a nice little evaporator in the shed behind the Ag shop. I got to help tend it those two days.

Boiling sap at school.

The weather all week was mild and springlike. It was nice to see the world emerge from the snow again. I wasn’t in school during the latter part of the week and I spent as much time as I could outdoors. We hit 60° on Wednesday and I worked in the orchard most of the morning hauling the rest of the pruned branches to the burn pile. The pile is pretty big, but it’s too wet to burn. That will have to wait for a dryer day later in the spring. In the afternoon I began cleaning out flowerbeds. The spring bulbs are finally pushing their way up and I wanted to clear away all the dead stuff from last year’s garden. I cut down all the old stems of last year’s perennials and raked out leaves, sticks, and other debris.

The burn pile.

Thursday was even warmer. After raking out the flowerbeds the day before, I spent Thursday weeding. There are weeds like dandelions, chickweed, and corn speedwell that grow during the winter, even when buried under snow. The chickweed and speedwell are especially bad this year. There were huge mats of them covering large areas of the long border and the front flower bed. The soil is still cold, but it felt good to get my hands dirty again.

Friday was the warmest day of the week – we almost hit 70°. There was a light frost in the morning, but as soon as it warmed up, I was outdoors. I spent several hours continuing to weed the long border. In the early afternoon when Miriam got home, we couldn’t resist the warm sunshine so we took a long walk up through the hollow, over the fields to the woods, and back along the road past the beaver pond. I hadn’t taken a walk that long and strenuous in a long time. My winter-weakened body wasn’t used to it and I felt the effects of it the next day. I’ll start taking longer walks now that spring is here.

On our walk: headed up the Rapley Road.

In the hollow.

Looking at home from the top of the hill.

A view across the fields.

The beaver pond.

In the wee hours of Saturday morning, around 2:00, we had a thunderstorm. The first clap of thunder woke me up and I lay awake in bed for an hour watching the lightning and listening to the thunder and pouring rain. I like thunderstorms. After a pretty post-storm morning, we had rain off and on for the rest of the day, so I didn’t get anymore yard work done. That was okay, I needed a rest. It’s that winter-weakened body again. It takes me a while to get back into gardening trim.

Yesterday was the annual local maple open house weekend. Twenty-seven local syrup producers participated. Stacey and I went to two of them, the open house at Hamilton’s in Bingham Township and the one at Wending Creek’s sugar shack. Miriam was there most of the day helping with that. She says they made almost 1,000 gallons of syrup this year. But the sap run is just about done now. As warmer weather settles in and trees begin to break bud, the sap isn’t good for making syrup anymore.

Miriam testing the Brix level of the syrup.

The evaporator at Wending Creek's sugar shack.

The signs of spring are abounding. Besides the birds, we have yellow crocuses in bloom as well as snowdrops and many more shoots emerging from the soil. Out in the woodshed, I have four seed trays planted now and there are sprouts in two of them. I go out every day to check on them and admire them.

Frosty morning.

It is colder, overcast, and a little rainy today. I see the forecast says we might get snow later today, but it won’t amount to anything. I hope they’re right. We have been to church and back again. Hannah is making pizza for lunch. That’s what we usually have on Fridays, but we didn’t last week, so we’re having it today. We can’t go too long without our pizza. This is the Sabbath, a day of rest, and I intend to fully make it so. I want to rest my aching body so I’ll be ready for every opportunity to work in the garden in the week ahead. It is officially spring now and no matter what the weather does, it feels like a triumph that we survived another winter. Bring on the flowers!