It was a lovely, balmy, seventy degrees today. The weather says that it's supposed to get colder and colder and rain and rain and freeze and snow.
However, like clockwork, the spring peepers knew that it was March and have been going at it (literally) day and night these past two days, and they'll keep it up for most of the rest of the month. Those guys don't mess around, so I hope that they're not wrong.
The robins have also returned. I heard one a couple weeks ago, but three or four days ago there were suddenly robins everywhere. The skunks were mating last month; you can tell because suddenly the road by the wood on the way to the university smells of skunk for two or three days solid. They'll do it again later this month (I think it's a different variety then). If you ask me, that's enough to mean spring has begun.
Next month the redbud and dogwood will bloom. Some time after that, the fireflies will come out, and it will be summer. Then come the hummingbirds, then monarchs. Then in September the goldenrod will bloom and the geese will start their cross country trek again.
I once read about flower calendars, made up of flowers that were supposed to bloom on a specific time of the year. Another one was made up of flowers that opened as the day went on (that one seems more complicated, somehow). I like to be able to see the seasons change, not just to know that they're done it, to be more in tune with the world than the calendar and weatherman would have me be.
I hope the peepers have got it right.