Looking for Spring

It’s hard not to notice that the drive into the office isn’t quite as dark these days. The sun is already testing the eastern horizon and trying to peek out from behind homes and trees. By the clock, nothing has changed yet, but the sky is already announcing spring’s arrival.

The astronomers would tell us this is geometry, not sentiment. Earth leans about 23˝ degrees from upright, a fixed tilt that, as we orbit the Sun, presents first one hemisphere and then the other to the light. We are now well into the northward lean. Since New Year’s Day, sunrise in McCook has crept nearly an hour earlier, and by the June solstice, the Sun will stand almost two hours ahead of where it rose at midwinter.

The clock will jump for Daylight Saving in a week or so, but the light has been advancing for weeks without legislation, and short-staffed business owners will greet the annual talk of “losing an hour of sleep” with wry amusement.

All of which is to say: the season is turning, whether we acknowledge it or not. McCook Community College’s Indians—men and women alike—are already a few games into spring schedules and winning. Along Norris Canyon, the turkey flocks seem to be out in greater numbers. Nebraska Game and Parks has begun its seasonal cadence as well: trout stockings in area waters and the familiar reminders about invasive species, boats and bait and small, persistent hitchhikers. Even the lakes are preparing to wake.

It is also the season of misplaced coats. Children shed them on playground fences and bus seats; adults abandon them over office chairs at midday, leaving us the choice between a raw morning commute or dragging two coats home in the evening.

Yet the practical signals of change are unmistakable. Construction schedules lengthen with the day. Crews can start earlier and finish later, which is a gift in a town with as many active projects as McCook carries this year.

There are subtler dividends as well. Longer daylight eases the drag that winter darkness imposes on mood and energy. The body keeps its own solar calendar, and it responds when morning light returns to the commute and dusk retreats further into the evening. The reduction in seasonal gloom is real and welcome.

I say all of this, of course, with a measure of naďve optimism and full awareness that March weather is, bluntly, the B-word. On the Plains, it is less a month than a condition—meteorological purgatory.

Statistically, we remain well within the window for disruptive snow for another six weeks or more; history has delivered blizzards in March and accumulating snows even into early May. Nebraska springs have a way of reminding us that the season does not change on schedule, and that winter is perfectly willing to make an encore appearance after we have put the shovel away.

Which is why I am always faintly amused by those cheerful seasonal graphics that appear this time of year—stock images of families flying kites under gentle March skies. In Nebraska, March winds do not loft kites; they shred them. So yes, the light is returning, and yes, the town is stirring toward spring. But we proceed with due caution, coats still at hand, knowing full well that on the High Plains, March always gets the last word before April is allowed to speak.