Leopold on March

MARCH Aldo Leopold's Essay from A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC, Oxford Press, 1949

"The Geese Return"

"One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring.

A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges."

..."Once the first geese are in, they honk a clamorous invitation to each migrating flock, and in a few days the marsh is full of them. On our farm we measure the amplitude of our spring by two yardsticks: the number of pines planted, and the number of geese that stop. Our record is 642 geese counted in on 11 April 1946..."

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Aldo Leopold on February

One of my favorite essays from A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC by Aldo Leopold is " Good Oak" which is the February entry. First he presents his opinion about the understanding that comes from living on the land and living in town.
"There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace. To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue.
To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the week end in town astride a radiator."*
*This is a quotation from an edition of A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC published by Tamarack Press, distributed through Oxford University Press, c1977, p. 12.

Later the essay chronicles history as he saws across the rings of an old oak tree which was felled by lightning and became their winter heat at the Wisconsin shack. Leopold recounts the most recent events of the last year backward to pioneer days as the saw cuts to the heart of the trunk.
You can trace Leopold's astute observations of the progress of the season in his writings in the classic A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC. I highly recommend it!