Wrenshall news: Spring hits its marks

At 4:37 a.m. on March 20, we officially passed into spring with the vernal equinox.

We’ve tipped the scales and there is a little more light every day. Our family joined plenty of other folks around the area with a big fire in the backyard to boil down sap. I saw two trumpeter swans fly across the fields just as I was putting the maple syrup into jars.

In the greenhouse, our onion seeds are up about an inch in their flats. After checking on the starts, I grabbed an onion from the root cellar on my way back to the house to cook dinner and I thought about how the onion in my hand had been that same little sprout a year ago. With the unpredictability the past year has brought us, it is comforting to see the natural cycles in our world and watch the marching signs of seasonal shift.

The word phenology comes from the Greek phaino, meaning “to show or bring light or make appear.” It refers to the observation of periodic events in the biological world. The first of these types of records appeared in China in 980 B.C. Some refer to phenology as “nature’s calendar.” This time of year is especially rewarding for this kind of practice.

There are some wonderful resources in Minnesota for those who want to start following along. Carlton County has been part of this work for quite some time with the Document Spring advisory group. All you need are some sensory observation skills and some way to record them.

My mother, Betsy Dugan, maintains a logbook to record daily phenological observations. Each page has the day of the year listed at the top but not the year. To make an entry she simply writes the year and what she saw that day. The data doesn’t have to be written. Kids can participate by drawing pictures or using a “signs of spring” checklist.

What day did you first see a robin? When do willow buds emerge? What about the catkins on the alders and how bright red the dogwood turns? Have you heard the sandhill cranes? And when will that first mow take place?

The Minnesota Phenology Network suggests watching the seven superstars of our region as a way to start being part of nature’s notebook: The monarch, red maple, tamarack, ruby throated hummingbird, common loon, eastern bluebird, and common lilac.

In 2013, a couple years after moving to Wrenshall, my parents hosted a party right around this time of year. My dad, John Sanford Dugan, wrote this poem for the occasion, based on our shared phenological knowledge, “A blessing for a farm dinner at the vernal equinox in snowy climes:”

Come, celebrate with us this happy day, when sunlight overtakes the shade of night. We’ve seen the migratory birds in flight, as toward a northern home they find their way. The snow and ice begin to melt away, and soon the shoots will push and reach for height. The streams will laugh and run with swift delight as if pursued by children out to play.

We turn to God for grace to meet our needs, for health and strength to carry through the year, in spite of floods, of drought, of pests and weeds. Now, as we pray for warm days to appear and bless the hope we plant with all our seeds, let’s fill our plates and lift a cup of cheer.

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