A “toe” of Spring as it wakes up from slumber

I went out in search of Spring and wildflowers for Wildflower Wednesday and though I didn’t find many spring ephemerals in my garden, I found this quote from Truly Rural by Richardson Wright (1922):

“To me Spring is a movement, a mighty surging upward. It isn’t coaxed from above, but moved from below. The growing things break upward through the crust of chill earth the way a man gets out of bed on a zero morning — gradually, reluctantly, cover by cover, a toe at a time; not because some one has waked him, but because he has accumulated the necessary refreshment of sleep and is ready to go forth and do the day’s work.

That day’s work may not be anything very strenuous, and yet it has a purpose. The earliest flowers in the garden are usually small flowers — as if Nature herself were putting out a toe at a time — snowdrops, crocus, and scillas. If these can stand it, then she comes out flat-footed on the cold floor of the earth with hyacinths, narcissus, tulips, and iris pumila. Once up, she shivers into a kimono of leafing trees, washes her face with April rains, does up her hair into delightful flowering shrubs, and sallies forth — the vain old thing! — in a gorgeous creation of peonies and German iris and lush green grass.” 

Spring is still in bed here, not quite awake. I suppose after the record high temperatures of spring last year, followed by record drought all summer,  followed by a blizzard the day after Christmas and a big late March snowfall just a few days ago, Spring needs a bit more rest than usual. 

None of us can make Spring hurry; this season has its own timetable, its own slow awakening from a well deserved slumber and we’ll have to abide by it. 

In a way though, isn’t it nice to know there is nothing we can do but sit and enjoy the show, as Spring climbs slowly out of bed?