Like a lion

I can’t remember for sure but I think March came in like a lion this year. If it did, then, according to the lore, it should go out like a lamb. Well here in Ferguson’s Cove, Nova Scotia it certainly isn’t doing that! This morning my corner windows are covered with a pattern of ice pellets, and the fierce northeast wind is blowing snow horizontally across my view, more like the roar of a lion than the gentle gambol of a mild lamb.

When we lived in Hants County, more than twenty years ago now, we experienced our share of spring snowstorms. We would always hope that the village school would be closed (even me, the dedicated principal!) and the snow cold and dry enough so we could head out through the old wood roads and trails for what might be the last ski of that season. There people had names for these storms. If we had one after the smelts had been running up the streams, it was called, naturally enough, the smelt storm. A little later, using the same logic, we might have the gaspereau storm, interrupting those who liked to use their long-handled nets to dip them from the deep spot in the Mill Brook right by Frieze and Roy’s store. There could also be a robin storm, surprising those brave early birds and burying their worms for a while. And, every now and again, we might have one of those late spring systems known as a shad storm, around the time these large fish were running with the tides up the Shubenacadie River, though we preferred to mark shad season (mid-May) with the bright white blooming of the serviceberry trees, which we called shad, rather than white snow (poor man’s fertilizer, they said it was) on our lawns and gardens.

Here the storm seems now to be settling a little, and the ice is slowly starting to slide down my windows, but the forecast indicates we will have to wait until tomorrow for more truly lamblike conditions (and that, after all, could just be an April Fool’s Day prediction, given how weather works here!). This morning early, when it was still snowing and blowing hard, the juncos and song sparrows were having a hard time poking around under the feeder looking for some buried seed treasures, but when I went out to clear off the car I heard a bird song I had never heard before. It was the territorial call of our little cardinal friend, who was perched in one of the pines, bright red against the brown bark and green needles, singing away to let us know that come snow and sleet and freezing rain and hail he was here to stay.

So the storms come and they go, and we have no choice but to weather them. While we do, the bird songs, the swelling of buds on the red maples, and the snowdrops by the brook at Sheila and Stephen’s house all tell us to hang on, because something is coming, something we might dare to call spring.