There are signs of spring…
and there are signs of spring.
Every year I eagerly await the opening of the Dairy Queen at the Kittery Traffic Circle as the definitive sign of spring. For some, the beginning of spring is the first crocus, or opening day at Fenway Park, or putting away the winter coat for good. For me it’s the first vanilla cone with chocolate jimmies. Spring came for me yesterday at lunchtime.
hhh
Dairy Queen is located at 174 State Road, right on the Kittery Traffic Circle, Kittery, ME.
One of my favorite spring scenes in South Berwick is the carpet of bright blue Siberian Squill that explodes every year in the little patch of woods behind the library. You can also see it from the post office/Ocean Bank parking lot. Watch for it this month. At its peak it is astonishing, and makes you wonder how it ever got started. The woods are owned by Historic New England and were part of the original Jewett family land.
I was thinking about that patch of woods when I wrote this. I will have to get a picture and post it here. It makes me happy to see it when I go to the post office this time of the year. One of the things I love about roaming around New England is coming upon evidence of the hand of some long ago gardener who was, probably unbeknown to him or her, leaving a legacy of beauty for future generations.
I wondered what those were. We used to live in that area of town and always made it a point to go see the blue ‘carpet’ of flowers. It is breathtaking.
Not that the Dairy Queen isn’t breathtaking! That’s great, too!
Wendy – I remember stumbling on that blue carpet the first time – must have been when we lived above the library and I was taking a short cut on a walk – it was astonishingly beautiful! Remember thinking – “what are these?” and “surely this isn’t an accident?!”
I think my favorite spring thing though is the peepers – we didn’t have them where I grew up in Colorado – the first time I heard them my husband quoted that line from the Frost poem “like a ghost of sleigh bells in a ghost of snow” – perfect. The poem was Hyla Brook – and it ends with the line “We love the things we love for what they are”. No peepers behind our house yet, but any day now…
I heard the peepers Thursday as I was driving by the old Janetos farmhouse on 101 in Dover, just before the golf course. Pulled over for a few minutes to listen. It sounded especially sweet this spring. Last Saturday, I was also happy to note a pair of swans making their stately progression along the Salmon Falls as it curves past Hamilton House. Such a contrast against the gray day!