I’ve been resisting it for a good month now, but I can’t contain myself any longer. And, judging from the emails and phone calls I’ve been sharing with family members and coworkers around the country, they’re feeling it, too. Spring fever has definitely arrived and, for those who have endured an especially cold and snowy winter, none too soon.

I really can’t complain because, although we get plenty of rain, foggy days and freezing temperatures here in the Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon in the winter, generally heavy snows and weeks of cold are rare. Still, there must be something deep in our genetic makeup that responds gratefully to the gradually lengthening days and the first hints of life returning to the earth as January tips into February. That was when I spotted the first nubs of daffodil and tulip sprouts nudging up out of the soil, and while my East Coast colleagues were being buried under more than a foot of snow, I was rejoicing in my first crocuses popping open.

I’ve been especially alert to each sign of the coming season this year in our new home. Eager to see which of the plants we laboriously planted last fall made it through the winter, I trek out virtually every day to make my rounds of the yard. The clematis and honeysuckle are sending out tendrils and the softest of new leaves, and the limbs of the maple in the front yard are surrounded in a haze of bright red buds. That shrub in the corner seemed overnight to throw out a flurry of tiny white flowers with the most intense, lovely scent, while the ornamental pear is a beacon of cheery blossoms and bright green leaves.

Not satisfied with hovering over last year’s plantings, I found the early warm days this month spurred me to make the first of many forays to the grange and nursery for some bareroot roses, blueberry bushes and asparagus crowns. Having dug those in, now I look for swelling buds and emerging shoots to tell me they are happy in their new home. It will be at least a year before I enjoy the fruits of the asparagus and blueberry plants, but I figure that is, above all, what spring is all about: hope and the anticipation of the fullness of life to come.

May you find a little time in the coming week to enjoy the world waking up around you and the spring sun on your face.

— Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader