The Smell of Rain

Throughout the morning, the fluffy white clouds grew larger and more numerous, cluttering up the blue sky. The temperature on the bank sign rose sharply from 40 degrees in early morning, up to 77 degrees by early afternoon.

After lunch, I stepped outside to run errands. A blast of hot, humid air washed over me as I opened the door. We just finished winter with a blizzard, and now it is summer! Then the rain began to fall. I stood under the overhang and watched as huge, splashing, cold drops plunged down through the warm air. Now it not only felt like summer, it smelled like summer.

You have probably smelled it, too: that sharp, pleasant, green scent of rain on dry earth. Those same wonderful odors will even rise up from concrete and asphalt. This smell has a fancy name, and also a biological explanation. The name is “petrichor,” which comes from the Greek word for rock (petra), and their word for the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology (ichor). You are smelling the blood of the gods sprayed up from the rocks. It is defined as "the distinctive scent which accompanies the first rain after a long warm dry spell."

This wonderful word was coined in 1964, by Isabel Joy Bear and R. G. Thomas, two Australian researchers who discovered that the scent originates from an oil which plants produce during dry spells to retard seed germination and early plant growth. This may be an adaptation plants use to limit competition during times of low moisture. Rain washes the oil away, stimulating germination and growth again. During the dry spells, the oil may also be absorbed into rocks and soils. Falling raindrops liberate the compounds from both plants and rocks, and fling them into the air we breathe.

The rain tapered off, and I walked down the street on my errands. From the bare soil in expectant flower gardens, another scent rose up to meet my nose. This earthy aroma is characteristic of healthy, post-rain soils, and sometimes is even included in perfumes. The name for this scent, “geosmin” also has a Greek origin (combining the words for earth and smell) and a biological explanation.

Geosmin, an organic compound, is produced by several classes of microbes in the soil, including cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) and actinobacteria (especially Streptomyces, which are important to medicine as a source for antibacterial and antifungal agents as well as anticancer drugs). The organisms thrive when the conditions are damp and warm, and create geosmin as a byproduct of living. In an effort to reproduce before they dry out, the bacteria also release geosmin-scented spores. Rain flings these compounds into the air, just as it does with petrichor, and we smell “earth.”

Smelling that wonderful earthy smell is one thing, but tasting it is quite another. Beets, some wines, and bottom feeding fish like catfish and carp all derive their characteristic earthy flavor from geosmin. Some folks like it, and others don’t. Even the water we drink can be tainted with the flavor, though it will not hurt you. Human taste buds are very sensitive to geosmin, and the average person can detect it at a concentration of 0.7 parts per billion. The human nose is even more sensitive, and is able to detect geosmin at concentrations as low as 5 parts per trillion.

In deserts, the presence of geosmin usually indicates water. Camels may follow the scent to an oasis, and then disperse the spores to new places on their travels. Some cacti scent their flowers with geosmin, thereby attracting thirsty insects who are tricked into serving the plant as pollinators. Closer to home, some biologists suspect that petrichor, washed into streams by rain, signals spawning time for freshwater fish.

In Australia, aboriginal people associate geosmin with the first life-giving rains of the wet season, and with the color green. So important is this smell that geosmin perfume, rubbed onto their bodies, serves as a symbolic connection of body and landscape. According to research done at the University of Queensland, “The odor is believed to be protective and cleansing, linking present generations to their ancestors.”

Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life. -- John Updike

Without rain, we could not smell petrichor, geosmin, the blood of the gods, the scent of the earth, the link to generations past. Without rain, we could not smell summer.

Soon the clouds thinned and dispersed, the pavement dried, and the sun shone. The smell of summer lingered on the breeze, and lilac buds began bursting with green in their effort to catch up!

The Tribes Wake Trilling

“You think it will never happen again. Then, one night in April, the tribes wake trilling.”

The first time I read this line from Mary Oliver’s poem, Pink Moon—The Pond, it thrilled me to the core. You may have felt that excitement, too, as you stepped outside to view the moon or let in the dog and were drenched by the music of frogs singing their hearts out in the cool, wet darkness of spring. The wood frogs are often first, with a series of sharp quacks, almost like a duck. Spring peepers live up to their name with high-pitched peeps. Enough peepers shouting at once sounds almost like sleigh bells. Then there is the “crrreek,” of the western chorus frog, that approximates fingers running over the teeth of a comb.

Why do the calls of amphibians give us such a thrill? Perhaps because it is a sure sign that spring is coming. Or maybe we sense their joy at being animate after a winter of being frozen solid. It might also be that we can feel the urgency in their voices as the males try valiantly to attract a female and procreate before the next guy steals her.

Frogs aren’t the only ones trilling this time of year. Yellow-rumped warblers and pine warblers are two early migrants with their own sort of trilling calls. In my college ornithology class, we decided that pine warblers sound like a UFO landing, and the yellow-rumped warblers have a much more variable call. Birdjam.com has excellent recordings of both. They have both arrived back in the northwoods, so listen up!

Frogs and warblers are exciting signs of spring, but on a recent evening, it was another call that pierced right through my window. “Old Sam Peabody-Peabody-Peabody,” whistled the white-throated sparrow. Instantly, a flurry of memories swirled around my brain like snowflakes in April.

As a sophomore in college, I had the opportunity to be the teaching assistant for a literature course called “Pens and Paddles in the Northwoods.” We were to spend 15 days in May paddling in the Boundary Waters and reading Thoreau, Olson, and Jaques. I had never been that far north in the spring. My parents, who spent their honeymoon in the Boundary Waters, later traveled there for 100 days, and “dated” during ornithology field trips in college, were ecstatic with anticipation for me to experience it as well.

One evening during spring break, as I was home borrowing gear, my dad went to the box of old records (you know, those round black things that play music), and selected one to put on the turntable. He checked the track list, and placed the needle carefully. Suddenly, the piercing cry of “Old Sam Peabody-Peabody-Peabody,” filled the room. “Listen for this,” he said. “You can’t miss it…this is the sound of spring in the North.”

Listen I did. Through swirling snowflakes, cresting whitecaps, dismal rain, and mucky portages, the white-throated sparrows sang us on with unceasing vigor. It was a tough trip during a cold spring, but somehow, being able to identify that bird call renewed my self-confidence each time I heard it.

I have since spent many weeks in the Boundary Waters, and sometimes the white-throated sparrows called with such intensity in the spring that I pleaded with them to give us some peace and quiet. Nowadays, with a full-time job, I don’t get up to canoe country until August, and all I hear are the abbreviated calls of late summer. White-throated sparrows do breed in northern Wisconsin, but I don’t hear them as much here.

It is snowing again today, and I could have started yet another article with a skiing adventure. But it’s May now – and I’m pretty sure you would rather read about frogs and birds.

You might be wondering how all these trilling tribes fare when the weather changes so quickly. There is certainly some mortality, but the frogs can accumulate sucrose (sugar) in their bodies. The sucrose concentrates fluids, and reduces ice crystal formation. Since they can freeze solid without harm for three or more days, this quick cold spell shouldn’t be a concern.

Even though the birds prefer summer temperatures, they always carry their own down jackets. Cold is not an issue, as long as their metabolism has enough fuel. The yellow-rumped warblers glean tiny insects off twigs, and may still be able to find enough food with a foot of snow on the ground, but the white-throated sparrows, who are ground-feeding seed-eaters, will now have a harder time.

Soon spring will really come, however, and all of us will sing a little louder.

“You walk down to the shore. Your coming stills them, but little by little the silence lifts until song is everywhere…”

Plus, looking on the bright side, there is one trilling tribe that has not woken up yet – mosquitoes!

For over 45 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The current exhibit, “Deer Camp: A Natural and Cultural History of White-tailed Deer,” opened in May 2013 and will remain open until April, 2014.

Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

Desert Adaptations in the Northwoods?

A vivid blue sky stretched overhead as the intense spring sun rose above the twiggy treetops. The thick blanket of fresh, white, snow reflected bright rays up and under the brim of my cap. Ski tracks that had been crunchy with ice just 30 minutes ago were now softening as the temperature rose steeply from a nighttime low of 18 degrees, to a daytime high of 45. The one thorn in my day was an uncomfortable crack in the winter-dry skin of my left heel.

It was amazing to be skiing in late April, in Wisconsin, and it is amazing that I can begin yet another Natural Connections by describing an experience on the ski trail. This particular day, with its bluebird sky, bright sun, and warm temperatures, also reminded me of another spring ski in a faraway land called Utah.

Back in 2005, I did an internship with the National Park Service leading school field trips and working in the visitor center in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. I lived in the tiny little town of Monticello (very similar to Cable!) at the base of the Abajo Mountains. Even though their name means “low,” the mountains tower above the intricately carved sandstone canyons of the park.

One weekend, my roommate and I took our skis and drove up the mountain road to where the snowplows stopped. From there, we skied up and over the snow-packed pass, and stood breathless at the view. From the midst of winter, we looked out on a sunbaked summer landscape of red rock canyons below fluffy white clouds. The view fueled our anticipation for spring. The only thorn in my day was cracked lips from the desert-dry air.

You might not think that Wisconsin and the desert southwest have much in common, but I found enough similarities in Utah to feel at home there, too. The snow, for one, was a nice connection. And half-buried in that snow were manzanita bushes with small, waxy, evergreen leaves on short woody stems. They bore a family resemblance to their cousins, other plants in the family Ericaceae, who are some of my favorite residents of Wisconsin bogs.

If you’ve ever explored a bog, you may have noticed that quite a few plants have those small, waxy evergreen leaves. Leatherleaf’s name advertises its tough appendages, while the lovely names of bog rosemary, bog laurel, small cranberry, and snowberry contrast with their hardy leaves. All are in the Ericaceae family.

Down in the desert canyons, the fuzzy leaves of sagebrush, Indian paintbrush, globemallow, and the in-rolled leaves of mountain mahogany also reminded me of my Wisconsin home. That might seem odd, but have you looked at the underside of a Labrador tea leaf from your local bog lately? The leaf margins roll in on a dense patch of wooly orange hair, and hairs also carpet the tightly-curled leaves of its neighbor, bog rosemary.

Why might desert plants and bog plants have some characteristics in common? For one thing, they both deal with a lack of water and desiccating winds during at least part of the year. But aren’t bogs soggy? Well, yes, but not when they are frozen, a condition that can extend late into spring. Plus, sometimes the peat in bogs builds up so much that plants are elevated above the water table. Deserts and bogs are also poor in nutrients due to slow decomposition rates.

Evergreen leaves are great for contending with low nutrient availability and short growing seasons, because plants do not need to grow new leaves each year, so they are less dependent on nutrients getting recycled. However, unlike deciduous leaves, evergreen leaves must deal with the absence of liquid water in winter (or in the summer for that matter.) The thick, waxy cuticle is a plant’s first defense, since it reduces water loss from evaporation. It serves the same purpose as the beeswax-based salve I massage into the cracked, dry skin of my heel and lips. This protective wax is as useful in Wisconsin winters as it is in Utah!

Although waxy leaves help protect them from drying out, plants still need to exchange some gases through their stomata to carry out photosynthesis. Stomata are pores in the leaf that allow gas exchange. Along with taking in the carbon dioxide necessary for photosynthesis, water vapor can also escape during transpiration. To reduce this loss, plants – both here and in the desert – try to create a “boundary layer.”

The boundary layer is a thin zone of calm air hugging the surface of the leaf. In this layer, the conditions are less harsh (less hot and dry) than in the wider world, and the temperature and moisture gradient is less steep. Therefore, the larger the boundary layer, the slower the rate of water loss. Hairy and in-rolled leaf margins increase the size of the boundary layer and slow water loss from transpiration. Humans create our own boundary layers with fuzzy wool sweaters and fleecy mittens.

Today we stand in Wisconsin – on the edge of winter – admiring the view of a distant spring. Although it may look quite different from southeast Utah, similarities can be found across all communities if we are willing to look a little closer. This holds true in our human communities just as much as in our natural communities. Where can you see our own Midwestern toughness and resilience reflected around the globe?

“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility.”

--Rachel Carson

Change

For the past few weeks, I enjoyed writing about things I had been mulling over for months. First, it was instinct and faith. Spring is a time of rebirth and renewal for almost everything, and organisms follow age-old clues to schedule their spring events. As we all wait for the relative ease of summer, looking to the sky can be a comfort no matter what you believe is up there.

Then I got philosophical about wind, and how it is both a symbol and a source of unity, freedom, eternity and balance. Most importantly for this time of year, the wind is the Earth’s attempt to find a temperature balance.

Recently, I shared stories of the many amazing organisms (including humans!) that look forward to the maple sap run each year. You can find all these stories on our Facebook page, or our blog at http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

All the while I was writing, something else was gnawing at my brain as well: an unpleasant, but fascinating understanding of how these three topics, and many others, are connected to each other, and to our actions.

Last year, UW-Madison professor Steve Vavrus and a colleague at Rutgers University published a paper hypothesizing that warming in the Arctic would cause the jet stream to slow down and meander like a river flowing through the plains. This, in turn, transports less warm air from the oceans over the land, and sets up more extreme weather.

The big-picture mechanism for this connection between warm oceans and slow-moving/extreme weather is not too hard to understand. Wind moves from high pressure to low pressure and equalizes temperature differences. When the temperatures are not as different, the wind does not have as much oomph. Melting ice in the Arctic, Professor Vavrus explained, allows heat stored in the ocean to escape to the atmosphere where it changes the pressure patterns.

It came as no surprise to the scientists, then, when record-low sea ice coverage in the Arctic last summer was followed by the coldest March in Wisconsin in 35-40 years, and a cold April full of slow-moving blizzards. Professor Vavrus acknowledges there is some natural fluctuation of the circulation patterns, and that weather and climate are different things, “But we're arguing the loss of sea ice is ... loading the dice in favor of a more negative Arctic oscillation pattern.” It is loading the dice in favor of extreme, unusual, and sometimes unpleasant weather.

The same meandering jet stream, he noted, could also explain the unusually warm spring in 2012. If a meandering jet stream is like a river, some bends are favorable to cold spells; others are favorable to extreme warmth. Either way, these unusual weather patterns are symptoms of climate change.

While we might be frustrated by the snow this spring, last spring people preparing to tap maple trees were just as disappointed by the early heat wave that severely shortened sap season. Cold nights are necessary for strong sap flow, and early bud-break stops it.

Wisconsin is one of the highest sap-producing states, and the crop value of syrup can be over $5.8 million a year. The value of this ancient tradition in terms of cultural history is immeasurable. You can read more at www.climatewisconsin.org.

This year, reports from tappers both old and new all point to the fact that this is just a weird year. As temperatures fluctuate from warm enough to cold again, the sap starts and then stops flowing. High winds steal away heat that trees absorb from the sun, slowing sap flow. Some sugarbushes are reporting record sap flows already, while others have not even started.

Maple trees respond to temperature to cue their sap flow, but other organisms rely on day length and sunlight intensity to prompt spring events. Many creatures in each category rely on each other for food, pollination, or other symbiotic services. What happens, then, when the day length and the temperature do not match up like the creatures expect? Will their faith in the progress of spring serve them well? Or will old instincts not work in a changing climate?

These are heavy questions to ponder, as I trudge through the slush with sleet pelting my face. The balance brought by wind, the comfort of the sky, the renewal of spring…will these change, too?

For over 45 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The current exhibit, STAR POWER: Energy from the Sun, opened in May 2012 and will remain open until April, 2013.

Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

Maple Syrup

The amber-colored liquid glowed warmly from inside the Mason jar. “Isn’t it just beautiful!?” crowed Deb, the proud owner of this jewel-colored liquid, and a brand-new participant in the age-old tradition of tapping maple trees for syrup. We all agreed that it was lovely, and licked our spoons quite thoroughly after the taste test.

Maple sap carries sugars, water, and other nutrients up from the tree trunk and roots where it was stored for the winter and into the twigs and buds where it can be used to fuel new growth in the spring. Since sap only runs profusely when temperatures fluctuate between warm, sunny days and below freezing nights, and before the leaves emerge, sugaring season is relatively brief. To me, it is impressive that humans figured out how to tap into this wonderful resource, and that the practice continues on both small and industrial scales today.

Humans aren’t the only creatures who know the secrets of the maple tree. An Iroquois legend explains that Native Americans initially learned how to collect sap from maple trees by watching red squirrels cutting into tree bark with their teeth and later returning to lick the sap. Acclaimed naturalist, Bernd Heinrich, author of Winter World and Summer World (two of my favorite books) was the first to describe this behavior for science.

Heinrich watched as red squirrels near his cabin in Maine used their teeth to make a “single pair of chisel-like grooves that punctured the tree to the sap-bearing xylem.” Most impressive to me is that the squirrels didn’t try to drink the dilute sap immediately. Instead, they gave the water in the sap some time to evaporate, and came back early the next morning before the sap started running again, to lick up the more concentrated syrup.

Not only do red squirrels have their own evaporating method, they also choose very carefully when to tap the trees. Squirrels know that anytime the leaves are off and the temperatures are fluctuating, sap will flow. They are able to tap the trees when the conditions are right in the fall and winter, as well as early spring!

Yellow-bellied sapsuckers are woodpeckers who also tap maple trees in the early spring. During this spring syruping season, they only need to make a narrow, circular hole in the bark to get the sugar they crave.

During the summer months, sap doesn’t flow through the xylem in the same way, but sugar manufactured in the leaves is being transported through the phloem. Phloem sap may contain 20-30% sugar – far higher than the 2-3% sugar in xylem sap. Smart as they are, it doesn’t seem like squirrels have figured that out.

Sapsuckers are the experts in summer sap tapping. They drill shallow, quarter-inch, rectangular sap wells in a variety of tree species, and use their brush-like tongues to lap up the sap that accumulates. Once the tree scars over the hole and the flow subsides, the birds drill another row of holes above the first. I’ve read that the pattern of holes sapsuckers use actually forces more sap through their newest holes as some vessels are constricted and sap flow is diverted. Sugar isn’t their only goal. Sapsuckers also eat the inner bark as they chisel, and nab insects that are attracted to the sugar.

Sapsuckers are one of our earliest returning migrants, but only about three weeks behind them come male hummingbirds intent on setting up a nesting territory. (According to the Journey North migration tracking website, http://www.learner.org/jnorth/, hummingbirds are stalled out in Illinois right now, and sapsuckers have been sighted in southern Wisconsin.) Not many flowers will be blooming by the time the hummingbirds get here, so the tiny birds take advantage of the nectar-like sap from sapsucker wells. In return, they chase off some of the 30-plus other species of birds that may steal the sap.

The sap from sapsucker wells also nourishes a host of other animals, including squirrels, bats, porcupines, and insects from at least 20 different families, such as bees, wasps, hornets, and moths. Snow fleas, who look like flakes of black pepper on the snow, sometimes become pests in sap buckets.

The Journey North website emphasizes just how important sapsuckers are to our northern forest communities. “Studies show that the diversity of many forest species, as well as the size of the population of each species, is greater in areas with high levels of sapsucker activity. Because of this effect, sapsuckers are considered a keystone species – they have a critical impact on the surrounding ecological community that goes beyond what would normally be expected from their numbers.”

The amber-colored maple syrup in the Mason jar must be special. It not only has the ability to connect Deb with her friends, her woods, and an ancient tradition, but it also connects dozens of species in fascinating and important relationships that make our community stronger. And it tastes great on pancakes!

The Breeze of Balance

A fresh breeze sighs loudly through the tops of the pine trees and gently stirs the air on the forest floor…A warm breath of spring, tiptoeing in from the south, brings the scent of warm soil and wet leaves…A gale from the north swoops over my shoulder and sends ripples racing across the sparkling surface of Lake Superior.

The month of March is known for being windy, and in this year of the slow spring, April is continuing to be just as blustery. Sometimes it wears on me – the constant battle, the whipping hair, and the unceasing noise – but some days it is invigorating and refreshing. What do you love or hate about the wind?

In some Native American and other cultures, wind is a symbol of unity, freedom, eternity and balance. It is as true ecologically as it is metaphorically.

The first time I encountered wind as a symbol of unity, I was on the south shore of Lake Superior, at a wedding on a piney point. A stiff breeze whipped through the trees and blew out the unity candle. With great aplomb, the minister launched into a beautiful and extemporaneous sermon on the wind as a symbol of unity. As the air swirled around all the guests and the happy couple, we imagined how all of our breaths came from and returned to the one body of air that surrounds us and the entire globe.

In some cultures, wind seems to be personified a divine messenger who is able to manipulate unseen energy. Indeed, wind is the main way that our Earth attempts to equal out differences in temperature. Energy from the Sun warms the Earth and the air above it, but it does not heat everything evenly. Some objects heat up more easily than others, and some areas of the Earth receive more energy from the Sun. As warm air rises, cool air flows in to replace it.

The stronger the difference in temperature, the stronger the winds. Think of it this way: in the summer time, the temperature difference between northern Wisconsin and southern Florida is not that big. In the winter, however, that temperature difference can get quite large. In order for our atmosphere to remain in equilibrium, the winds must speed up. Wind is the Earth’s attempt to find a temperature balance.

Wind disperses more than just heat. When strong winds carry away soil, microbes in the soil can act like hitchhikers and go along for the ride. Nutrients and organisms lost from one region may be deposited across the globe. The organisms may colonize otherwise inaccessible regions. The nutrients being blown around the globe may help forested areas obtain trace amounts of minerals. Some organisms in particular get a significant amount of nutrients from dust on the wind. Lichens and epiphytes (“air plants”) are two examples.

Insects also use the wind for long-distance travel. Just how high can they fly? Researchers calculated that “on any given day, the air column rising 50-15,000 feet above one square mile of Louisiana countryside contained an average of 25 million insects.” (From my current bedside book, Insectopedia by Hugh Raffles) At the upper limit, 15,000 feet, there was a ballooning spider who used his silk as a kite. Butterflies, dragonflies, gnats, water striders, leaf bugs, booklice, and katydids have been sighted hundreds of miles out on the open ocean, and aphids have been found on ice floes. Some wingless insects (and plankton!) are plucked from their earthly tethers by a sharp gust of wind, but very few are completely passive travelers.

Wind also helps lakes balance their nutrients and chemicals throughout various layers during fall and spring turnover. In the fall, when the surface water cools to about the same temperature as the lower water, the wind can turbulently mix the water masses together (fall turnover) and even out the temperature and oxygen levels. A similar process occurs during spring after ice-out, as colder surface waters warm to the temperature of bottom waters and the lake mixes (spring turnover). Water from the lake bottom brings nutrients up with it.

I contemplated all those things and more while hiking under the sighing pines. Have you also enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere in a pine grove? We participate in an ancient tradition.  Liu Chi (1311-1375), an important scholar under the Yuan and the Ming Dynasties, wrote “…nothing is better suited to wind than the pine...when wind passes through it, it is neither obstructed nor agitated. Wind flows through smoothly with a natural sound. Listening to it can relieve anxiety and humiliation, wash away confusion and impurity, expand the spirit and lighten the heart, make one feel peaceful and contemplative, cause one to wander free and easy through the skies and travel along with the force of Creation.”

With every breath, we invite the universe in. As the spring winds swirl around you, take a peaceful and contemplative moment to appreciate the wind’s role in encouraging balance and unity in our sometimes stormy world.

Look to the Sky

Crusty snow crunched loudly under my skis as I powered up a hill. Although the temperature at sunrise was 15 degrees, it had already risen to 25 by the time I hit the trail. My arms burned as I compensated for the chunky, uneven snow. All my concentration focused down on the gray snowpack, and inside my core.

Then I reached the crest of the hill and looked up. Blue sky and bright sun filtered through every gap in the trees. Immediately, my mood lifted.

Now, I am a naturalist, and not a philosopher or religious scholar, but it seems to me that in both religion and nature we look to the sky for assurance that rebirth will occur. This time of year especially, prayerful folks are lifting their eyes skyward to thank a higher power for a certain ancient resurrection. When the world around us is gray and cold, and it seems like spring might never come, a look to the sky reassures us. That deep blue color, the lengthening days, the intensity of the sun, all signal that the even more ancient rebirth of spring, however slow, is on its way.

Earlier last week, when I started to write this, damp cold permeated the silent woods. Dark trees stood somberly, the live ones indistinct from the dead. I trudged on in melancholy monotony. Then suddenly I became aware of my mood, and the tunnel of gray that had snared me. To break free, I repeated that gesture of looking to the sky, and felt hope return.

During these gray days of early spring, when food is scarce for many in nature, they still put all their energy into creating new life. The squirrels, who have resorted to eating bitter spruce buds, are also chasing each other in a frenzy to reproduce. Foxes and fishers, who might have trouble breaking through crusty snow to access mice, are traveling widely to defend their breeding territories. Whitetail does, and mothers of all kinds, are nurturing their unborn young with the last reserves of their own bodies.

I understand the warblers who return in the warmth of spring to feast on our plentiful insects and raise their young in the bounty of summer. It is harder to comprehend the skunk, who must rouse himself/herself out of his warm burrow in early dawn of spring and traipse across a frozen landscape with the intention of creating new life. How can he/she even be sure that nature will provide warmth and food again?

Animals have this faith built right into their genome. You might also call it instinct, or adaptation.

Plants, too, who stored starches in their roots last fall, who carefully prepared buds many months before spring, and who crafted nutrient-filled seeds in the dog days of summer, have this faith.

Insects are waiting patiently. Long ago, in the shortening days of fall, they found a protected place to hide. Some overwinter as adults, some as larvae or pupae, and some as eggs. The individual may not survive, but the cycle of life continues.

Underneath two feet of dense snow lies a carpet of aspen leaves with little green islands where moth pupae wait for spring. Inside goldenrod galls, the fly larvae have not yet pupated, and still risk death at the piercing beak of a downy woodpecker.

Ticks will soon become active in widening patches of bare, sunny, forest floor.

Wood frogs, still frozen under the snow, are poised to thaw at the first chance. Spotted salamanders wait in their tunnels below the frost line. Their cells contain little bits of algae, who are waiting to emerge into the sunlight and begin photosynthesis.

Loons are in their breeding plumage, and have started moving north. They will fly to the edge of the region of ice, and make forays each day to check on the progression of ice-out. Turkey vultures have already arrived.

If you, too, feel that tunnel of gray ensnaring you, just look to the sky. The cycles of spring restore our faith in the power of life.

Let us hope it will always be like this, each of us going on in our inexplicable ways building the universe.
-- Mary Oliver, from “Song of the Builders"