Are We There Yet?

March 15, 2018 A Pugmire

The month of March is a study in opposites. The warmth of early summer and the chill of deep winter, the calm stillness of a soft evening and the bluster of gale force winds, the vernal equinox, when hours of light equal the hours of darkness, these are all squeezed into that bottle of time the calendar names March. My own frame of mind tends to match the upheaval and irrationality of this moody month. I am impatient for spring to come, tired of nature’s adolescent extremes.

In the canon of Chinese mythology is the story of the Candle Dragon who lives inside a mysterious mountain beyond the Northwest Sea. He is a monstrous creature with a scarlet serpentine body and a human head. He neither eats nor drinks, and never sleeps, but when he closes his eyes the world knows night and when he opens them it is day. When he yawns fierce winds blow, sometimes bringing rain. When he breathes out the sky grows dark with clouds, and a sniff can bring great storms or a midsummer’s day in an instant. When he breathes in the earth grows warm, so warm in fact, the heat can melt stone. The dragon guards the Gate to Heaven and holds in his mouth a candle to light the way for those who are worthy. He is the light in the darkness. It is a classic tale of yin and yang, the delicate and often mercurial balance of opposites.

March is the embodiment of the flow between nature’s opposites – hot and cold, light and dark, wet and dry, growth and rest. It is a dramatic time of transformation. Named for Mars, the god of war, March used to be the beginning of the Roman year. Further north the Anglo-Saxons called this month “Hlyd monath” – stormy month, or “Hraed monath” – rugged month. Perhaps it was too rugged to be the start of a new year forever. Pope Gregory XIII introduced his own calendar in 1582, adding two months in front of the warrior month of March. Much of the world adapted to this new reckoning, but Britain and its American colonies stubbornly stuck with the calendar that began with March until 1752. The change occurred in September and required skipping ahead 11 days, a loss for many but not to all. Benjamin Franklin said it was “pleasant for an old man to be able to go to bed on September 2, and not have to get up until September 14.” The sun and the moon paid no mind to this human affair and continued to rise and set just as they always had.

The Taijitu symbol, the sphere formed by Yin and Yang is found in many cultures, a timeless reminder that nothing is static. All life is in constant motion, even when I can’t perceive it with eye or ear or logic. Dark flows to light, winter to spring and back again. The Taijitu reminds me that spring is already on its way, but it has been a long winter and I am anxious for the first crocuses and daffodils, the first finches and bluebirds, the first coatless day. My skin is hungry for sunshine and warmth, my mouth ready for wild strawberries and fresh sugar peas from the garden. Mother Nature is patient, but I am not, and I keep asking every day now, are we there yet?

Additional Reading

Spring reading suggested by the Huffington Post

All Creatures Great and Small – James Herriot

The Secret Garden – France Hodgson Burnett

Bluebeard’s Egg – short stories by Margaret Atwood

And for those of you studying the seed catalogs with longing – tidbits about planting

Fun Facts

March is National Noodle Month

March 20 is the vernal equinox

March has two full moons this year – March 1st and March 31st

The Eiffel Tower was first opened to the public in March of 1889

Alexander Graham Bell made the first phone call ever March 10, 1876

Cambridge students march from the town of March in the month of March for no particular reason – a 30 mile march across the Fens that seems a bit mad and pointless to many, – only four students showed up this year.

People born in March include Dr. Seuss, Daniel Craig, Albert Einstein and Lady Gaga.

Quotables

“Indoors or out, no one relaxes in March, that month of wind and taxes, the wind will presently disappear, the taxes last us all the year.”
– Ogden Nash”It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”

– Charles Dickens

“Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.”
– Doug Larson

Poet’s Corner

March

by Richard Kenney

Sky a shook poncho.
Roof wrung. Mind a luna moth
Caught in a banjo.
This weather’s witty
Peek-a-boo. A study in
Insincerity
Blues! Blooms! The yodel
Of the chimney in night wind.
That flat daffodil.
With absurd hauteur
New tulips dab their shadows
In water-mutter.
Boys are such oxen.
Girls! — sepal-shudder, shadow-
Waver. Equinox.
Plums on the Quad did
Blossom all at once, taking
Down the power grid.

March Weather

by Tessa Ransford

Wind in pines
wind on water
wind in rushes
wind on feather
Sun in leaves
sun on loch
sun in reeds
sun on duck
Rain in trees
rain on river
rain in moss
rain on eider
All one morning
all together
in an hour

Try This:

Rainbow Pasta

1 – Cook spaghetti, vermicelli, or linguine noodles according to the directions on the package

2 – Prepare quart or gallon Ziplock bags with 2 tablespoons of water and about 20 drops of food coloring per bag (if using color paste use a little more water and knead to dissolve evenly)

3 – Add cooked pasta to each bag, seal and gently mix color into pasta

4 – Drain each color of pasta separately in a colander and return to warm pot

5 – Toss colored pasta together with a bit of butter or olive oil

6 – Serve with your favorite topping – grated cheese, pasta sauce or herbs

Noodle Nests

1 – Prepare spaghetti according to the directions on the package

2 – Drain and toss with olive oil

3 – Form a nest of noodles on a plate

4 – Create “birds” from meatballs or veggie balls; use a tiny cheddar cheese wedge for a nose, use a straw to cut tiny circle of provolone for eyes and bits of black olive to form the pupils

5 – Add celery tops to form “branches” around the nest

Make a Bird Feeder

Here are some helpful sites:

Egg Shell Planters

Only registered users can comment.

David says:

March 15, 2018 at 9:23 pm

I’m not sure spring will make it this year. The snow just keeps getting deeper and deeper.
1. A Pugmire says:
  
  March 15, 2018 at 9:26 pm
  
  Only in New England. Spring has already come to the West coast!:-)

Comments are closed.

– World’s highest motorable road – Umling La or Umlingla Pass in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir – at 5,883 meters or 19,300 feet above sea level.

– World’s lowest motorable road – Route 90 in Israel passing along the western bank of the Dead Sea at a -423 meters or 1,388 feet below sea level (Note: there are lower elevations but this is considered the lowest motorable road.)

– Straightest Road – The Eyre Highway in Australia that is a 90 mile stretch of road without a single curve – which pales beside highway 10 in Saudi Arabia – 140 miles of straight blacktop with only a slight bend near the Emirati border.

– Most crooked road – Lombard Street in San Francisco still retains that honor according to the Guinness World Record Book – it’s 8 hairpin turns equal 1,440 degrees of curved road in only 400 meters, and it has a mandatory 5 mph speed limit.

– Longest road – the Pan American Highway that links both North and South American except for a 100 km distance called the Darien Gap – the approximate length is 48,000 km or 29,826 miles.

– Oldest road – a stone paved road in a desolate corner of Egypt linking a basalt quarry to a waterway for transportation – estimates put it at 4,600 years old.

The Roads

I stand on the windy uplands among the hills of Down
With all the world spread out beneath, meadow and sea and town,
And ploughlands on the far-off hills that glow with friendly brown.

And ever across the rolling land to the far horizon line,
Where the blue hills border the misty west, I see the white roads twine,
The rare roads and the fair roads that call this heart of mine.

I see them dip in the valleys and vanish and rise and bend
From shadowy dell to windswept fell, and still to the West they wend,
And over the cold blue ridge at last to the great world’s uttermost end.

And the call of the roads is upon me, a desire in my spirit has grown
To wander forth in the highways, ‘twixt earth and sky alone,
And seek for the lands no foot has trod and the seas no sail has known:

For the lands to the west of the evening and east of the morning’s birth,
Where the gods unseen in their valleys green are glad at the ends of the earth
And fear no morrow to bring them sorrow, nor night to quench their mirth.

C.S.Lewis

Create a backyard treasure hunt using clues that require compass readings or rely on cardinal directions – north, south , east, west.

To make a map for players to follow print out an online Google maps picture of your yard (or park – wherever you choose to do this). Use a colored pen to mark compass points on the map so that players can orient themselves to their surroundings.

Keep instructions simple.

You can create a map for each player, leading to an individual treasure, or divide players up into teams for a team treasure hunt.

Players can use a compass, a GPS device, or phone to point them in the right direction, or if they are especially observant, their own observations of the sun.

When the treasure has been found, challenge the players to create their own treasure map. Trade maps with another player and follow the clues to a new treasure.

Favorite treasures at our house have been edibles packed in Ziplocs, but a close second was a plaster of paris turtle my mother painted in garish colors that could be buried and reburied a hundred times without altering its appearance.