March. It’s a quixotic month. Some days it smiles in the way of spring and makes the pussy willows and the snowdrops bloom and the forsythia edge toward budding. Sometimes it growls in a forbidding way, letting everyone know that winter hasn’t quite gone by. In March, deciduous trees creak in the wind and evergreens sigh. They do little gentle sighing. Sighing, wistful winds come later — in April and May.

March is a month you have to stand up to if you would enjoy it. It’s a month in which to search out the first signs of spring and welcome them. But it’s a month that puts you in your place. It lets you know that neither farmers nor gardeners nor woodsmen nor beachcombers have any control at all over Nature.