A glimpse of spring A glimpse of spring (February 25, 2004)

By Andrea Gemmet

Almanac Staff Writer

Wet winds and stormy clouds may fill the skies, but a break in the weather last week gave us a chance to enjoy a taste of early spring.

All around there are signs of the season's change. Sunny daffodils are sprouting beside mailboxes, poking up in flowerpots, nodding alongside roadways. Tulip season is around the corner, but already tulip trees are producing prolific quantities of prodigious pink blooms. Deep pink plum blossoms coat dark limbs, pale cherry buds are in abundance, and snowy white pear blossoms are already giving way to bright green leaves in some neighborhoods. The tall acacia, an abundantly growing exotic transplant, signals winter's end as it drips pollen from its fuzzy yellow pom-poms.

At local parks, stiffly bundled toddlers morphed, at least temporarily, into lightly clad children playing in the dappled sun. Apple-cheeked from the chilly breeze, they rushed around Nealon Park in a frenzy, dodging the mud puddles that lurked below the swings, slipping down slides and swinging on bars like gleeful little monkeys.

The official start of spring may be a month away, but when a dreary February is interrupted by a blooming spring day, the sky seems bluer, the sun seems brighter and frail petals more brightly colored. As Gertrude S. Wister once wrote, "The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size."

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