Significant sentences from The Twelve Moons of the Year by Hal Borland, a chronology of the New England seasons. March (01).
"The bud and the egg can wait, for a safe temperature or a precise span of daylight." p. 60.
"...most countrymen have a weather sense, even though they supplement it with the morning's forecast." p. 61.
"March has a dubious reputation at best...the hint of madness in the very mention of the March hare...the threat of dark deeds in the ides of March...lamb-and-lion belief...March mud...March floods...the winds of March...the March blizzard of '88." p. 62.
"Maybe we give March its bad name because we are so impatient." p. 62.
"...migrant robins...have an almost uncanny temperature sense, almost never appearing before the average twenty-four-hour temperature is at least thrity-five degrees." p. 65.
"The March wind is the voice of seasons in transition."
"But on a warm day in the woods you can sense the subtle fragrance of the resin that coats the buds of poplar trees and cottonwoods." p. 67.
"...red squirrels which can scold like a catbird, chatter like a flicker, shriek like a jay."
"The red squirrel...darts, he scurries, he plunges headlong and he is superbly graceful every instant." p. 69.
"Frost in the ground slowly retreats, making quagmires of open fields, sodden sponges of pastureland." p. 70.
"There is something in a mild March day...." p. 71.
"Birds obviously sometimes sing merely because they feel like singing." p. 73.
"Buds fatten on the elms, beading their twigs against the sky." p. 74.
"Like many of our wild flowers, coltsfoot is an alien...brought here by early colonists for use in herbal medicine.... Decoction of the leaves and roots was believed to be good for coughs and those late winter colds that could turn into pneumonia." p. 75.
"Brooks gurgle and flow again beneath their rotting ice." p. 76.
"Neither the power of man's armies nor the efficiency of his machines can hurry or delay a solstice or an equinox." p. 77.
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