zip-a-dee-doo-dah

Winter's roar persists at the door of many as March gets underway. Rather than the rasping of a scraper removing frost on wind shields early in the morning, the crunch of slush-turned-to-ice underfoot as one tenderly finds a safe pathway, small cloud banks of breath momentarily suspended in time, or the stinging bite of below-freezing air on exposed skin, I am finding my first days of March filled with the drone of lawnmowers, the lively a cappella voices of courting birds, the snapping of flip-flops on heels as one walks down the sidewalk, and the earthy smells of decomposing straw with steer manure freshly mixed in gardens, all promising an awakening of spring.

As I am enjoying this delightful change of seasons, planting my garden, humming Disney's "Song of the South" (yes, I'm a dork), several small, fast-moving objects flew past my head, hitting the fence and side of the house with a sharp crack. My first thought was the combination of a pesky neighborhood child and tiny rocks (it happens--physics with gravity and flight are sometimes too tempting to leave unexplored), but then I noticed a rather large, rusty-cinnamon colored seed on the ground. Ah, yes, 'tis the season for the wisteria seed pods (five to nine inches in length) held over from late last year, now drying in the warm air, to twist into hard curls causing an explosion of seeds that can soar over thirty feet from the plant. Mother nature's violent side of propagation.