“Early Blush of Spring”
* This was an earlier Facebook post (Dec., 2019) that I felt warranted inclusion on our blog in the spirit of spring. My hopes for an early spring in Ohio were premature. As of today, April 13, there are few signs of flowering abundance save the random tulip trees and the blush of green and tinges of red on the landscape. The following then is a repost of my earlier December description. Be safe in the days ahead!
“March is the Cruelest Month” (apologies to T.S. Eliot)
After a series of black and white, (“bleak is beautiful”) photographs this past week, I’m hoping to redeem myself with the promise of an early spring as had occurred at the time this photo was taken above the Chagrin river. The spring tease pictured here came in March, 2012 with the transformation of the winter landscape as average daily highs exceeded 60°, an all time record. The month included four days in the 80°’s and seven in the 70°’s and was 18° higher on average than normal.
The crabapple, in its premature cloak of green (foreground), had dropped its blossoms days earlier, and the flowering cherry trees punctuated the landscape as sycamores stood erect and bare among oaks and black willows, an early mantle of color spreading across the latter.
April that year returned to normal with a succession of frosts and temperatures below freezing proving March, not April,
the cruelest month of the year.
