More Peeping

I thought the spring peepers had done their thing and gone
back to wherever it is they stay the rest of the year.

After a balmy Super Tuesday, it rained and turned cold again.
For a few days it was very cold for these parts, snow on the
mountain top, up to 4 inches in places. Only light flurries here
in the valley, but there was a lacy edging to my book building
when I went there to pick up books ordered.

Then the weekend before the big March 4th primaries, they
were at it again, both in the spring water deep in the woods
across the road and at the pond in my neighbor's pasture,
Their voices too loud and shrill to call the sound peeping.
It was 70 degrees and sunny as I worked in the yard that
Sunday, listening to the frog choruses to the north and to
the south of me. I won't indulge in anthropomorphism and
say they're timing their concerts as a prelude to the
primaries, but the jubilant abandon with which they sing
out makes an appropriate background to the voting
excitement.

Now I know why I had been under the impression that they
are calling for rain: it is simply because of our normal
weather cycle at this time of year. It will be cold, sometimes
with frozen ground, then gradually warm up and then there
will be one or two shirtsleeve days, and the frogs will come
out and sing. It always rains and turns cold again, and
always then the frogs are silent.

This time their appearance is a prelude to spring, just as the
writers say about the peepers in the northern states. There
are jonquils, and there are a few white blossoms on my
pearl bush, scotch broom has been blooming for about a
month now, And there are both upright and umbrella-type
flowering quince near the library, the branches covered
with red flowers, so bright and pretty I wish I had planted
some here last fall.

But my priority is to get one of my small garden beds sowed
with greens. I've hauled in buckets and cans of cow manure
and got the soil loose and mixed, but it isn't raked and ready
yet. Too wet now from Tuesday's downpour.

Freezing rain washed down on the intrepid Ohio voters.
That would be a state where it would be another week
or so before the peepers appear, according to those
northern writers who state they appear in mid-march.
That is, if Ohio has spring peepers.