Spring Beach Dreams
Feb/25/10 10:39 PM
This week has been just warm enough to get my imagination going.
Even today when the temperature is struggling to stay above forty degrees Fahrenheit, my hopes have not been crushed.
I still have the memory of visiting the beach on Tuesday night burned into my mind's eye. That is when I snapped today's picture. Even though the light was fading and the breeze had developed a cool edge to it, the colors on the beach triggered some much warmer thoughts.
It was easy for that to happen since the temperature had soared to sixty eight degrees Fahrenheit on Monday morning as we stood on our dock dreaming of warmer days.
February is a hard month when you live in the northern parts of the country. There is little hint of spring. However, in coastal North Carolina, February is a month where we count on seeing the first signs of spring.
Even in a tough year like this one, we have not been disappointed. The first sign that I saw was grass turning green on the backside of our bulkhead where it catches the first rays of the morning sun. I actually noticed that on Sunday of this week. Later in the week, I thought my imagination was playing tricks with me as my eyes kept telling me that one of the large fields which had been in corn last year had a green tint to it. Today I could see that weeds had actually started growing in the field.
There were other subtle signs. It has been at least five or six days since I have seen a pelican in Raymond's Gut which is behind our home. The blue and white herons are also no longer fighting over the small pond surrounded by cattails in the vacant lot beside our home in Bluewater Cove. I suspect the waters in Bogue Sound have warmed enough for them to change their fishing grounds.
There must have been some special colors on the beach Monday which really triggered my thinking about spring. It was the first time since late November that I could almost taste the salt water. Then today as I was walking out of our real estate office in Cape Carteret, I noticed that our daffodils are not only out of the ground but they are also budded. I suspect that all it will take for some blooms is a few warm days.
The thought that we might be just a week or so away from seeing spring flowers is a very reassuring one, considering that we saw snow on the ground only two weeks ago. Last year we had some really great weather in early February that got my hopes up early.
That has not be the case this year. Just about everyone has had to battle some snow this winter, but in spite of that it does not look like the flowers are far behind last year. According to a post that I wrote at the end of February the daffodils were blooming then.
In three days it is possible that we could see some daffodils. I will start looking now. Even as I write this the sky has turned a beautiful clear blue and the sun is shining brightly. I feel it in my frozen bones, spring is on the way. We can legitimately start dreaming of time on the beach.