I’ve seen too many snow and ice storms from mid-March and into early April to let down my guard and admit that Spring has arrived, but the nascent leaves and flowers that have been popping out on the trees along our segment of the Huckleberry Trail have me feeling hopeful. And nervous.

Not that the trees couldn’t bounce back from a hard freeze at this point—there will still be leafy green shade this summer even if Jack Frost nips the noses of these anxious leaf buds.

If we get one last cold snap, however, we may have to wait for 2019 to see the flowering trees and shrubs—redbud, dogwood, crabapple, tulip poplar, lilac, forsythia—in all their glory.

Depending on when that last gasp storm hits, and how warm it gets before now and then, the forsythias may have already peaked, based on what I’m observing now while Dash and I are stretching our legs each morning and evening.

The Weather Channel may claim to be able to predict the future but the only true way to know what this month that came in like a windy, roaring lion, will bring. Meanwhile, I’m doing my zen-best to enjoy both the sun and showers.

[Thanks to the following photographers for making their work available through the Creative Commons license: Lena Lozhkina; Susanne Nilsson; Eli Sagor; Leigh Ann Kopans; Tim González; deedavee easyflow; and Kirill Ignatyev.  © 2018 Sidewalk Zendo. Reprints welcomed with written permission from the author.]