Soon they had all the hay,
all the straw, all the string,
all the stuffing, all the horse hair,
and all the man hair they could carry.
They took it all back
to build their nest.
from The Best Nest
written and illustrated by P. D. Eastman
Random House/Beginner Books, 1968
(accessed on Hoopla 3/2/26)
Last week, I saw two robins. My husband saw one also. A bluebird landed on the wire outside my kitchen window at the end of January. I took its picture. I used to think robins all went south to avoid the cold weather. I had no idea about bluebirds.
So of course I looked it up, hoping against hope these early sightings were not yet another ominous sign of Climate Catastrophe.
Turns out that while it’s still crucial to avoid single-use plastic whenever you can, reduce as much as you can those consumable everythings to cut down items for the landfill, and eat as low as you can as often as you can on the food chain (more plants, less animals) some robins stay in Ohio (and other northern states) all year round. Bluebirds, too.
Robins are typically not seed-eaters. Whenever they can, robins eat earthworms. In winter, though, they switch to juniper, holly, serviceberries, and any other berry they can find, crabapples, and other fruit, even seeds and crushed peanuts. Same for the bluebirds who decide to stay.
So robins might not be the harbinger of Spring after all. But like my friends who return from Florida, South Carolina, and Arizona in April and May, it feels comfortable and right that they’re here.
We all saw (or at least heard about) Punxsutawney Phil, or Buckeye Chuck, or even Benny the Bass tell us to expect six more weeks of winter. That puts us in the middle of March.
The Spring Equinox will occur on March 20, this year at 10:46 am. It is the day when the amount of daylight equals the amount of darkness. and the astronomical start of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s almost now. But…
For those of us who can’t wait that long, we can celebrate the meteorological beginning of Spring on March 1 each year. (I know It’s a few days late, but we’re celebrating Spring, after all!) Meteorologists like to divide the calendar into equal segments based on typical temperatures. That makes it easier to calculate statistics. And much less cumbersome to talk about.
Any way you look at it, Spring and Daylight Savings Time (yes, *that* again) are intertwined.
This coming Saturday night (3/7), set your clocks ahead one hour before you turn in for the day. We will wake up Sunday morning to a magically disappeared hour. It evaporated while most of us were sleeping. So we wouldn’t notice?
On January 3, 2025, Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) introduced The Sunshine Protection Act of 2025. It was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and there it sits. It would make daylight savings time the new, Permanent Standard Time.
It’s been sitting in committee for over a year. No discussion, no debate, no votes.
Perhaps the legislators have more important issues on their plates?
And so, while I’m partial to bluebirds for political reasons, ;-) it’s pretty exciting to watch the bright red breast of a robin as it pulls up a wiggly worm in the green, green grass of home.
I’m reading Asterwood by Jacquelyn Stolos (RandomHouse Children’s Books/Delacorte Press, 2025). Written for 5th - 8th graders, the main character, Madelyn, discovers a wild and magical world through the woods behind her house. With the help of her new friends, she works to save this world and discover its secrets, while uncovering some pretty fantastic secrets of her own.
--Be curious! (and watch for signs of Spring)
all the straw, all the string,
all the stuffing, all the horse hair,
and all the man hair they could carry.
They took it all back
to build their nest.
from The Best Nest
written and illustrated by P. D. Eastman
Random House/Beginner Books, 1968
(accessed on Hoopla 3/2/26)
Last week, I saw two robins. My husband saw one also. A bluebird landed on the wire outside my kitchen window at the end of January. I took its picture. I used to think robins all went south to avoid the cold weather. I had no idea about bluebirds.
So of course I looked it up, hoping against hope these early sightings were not yet another ominous sign of Climate Catastrophe.
Turns out that while it’s still crucial to avoid single-use plastic whenever you can, reduce as much as you can those consumable everythings to cut down items for the landfill, and eat as low as you can as often as you can on the food chain (more plants, less animals) some robins stay in Ohio (and other northern states) all year round. Bluebirds, too.
Robins are typically not seed-eaters. Whenever they can, robins eat earthworms. In winter, though, they switch to juniper, holly, serviceberries, and any other berry they can find, crabapples, and other fruit, even seeds and crushed peanuts. Same for the bluebirds who decide to stay.
So robins might not be the harbinger of Spring after all. But like my friends who return from Florida, South Carolina, and Arizona in April and May, it feels comfortable and right that they’re here.
We all saw (or at least heard about) Punxsutawney Phil, or Buckeye Chuck, or even Benny the Bass tell us to expect six more weeks of winter. That puts us in the middle of March.
The Spring Equinox will occur on March 20, this year at 10:46 am. It is the day when the amount of daylight equals the amount of darkness. and the astronomical start of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s almost now. But…
For those of us who can’t wait that long, we can celebrate the meteorological beginning of Spring on March 1 each year. (I know It’s a few days late, but we’re celebrating Spring, after all!) Meteorologists like to divide the calendar into equal segments based on typical temperatures. That makes it easier to calculate statistics. And much less cumbersome to talk about.
Any way you look at it, Spring and Daylight Savings Time (yes, *that* again) are intertwined.
This coming Saturday night (3/7), set your clocks ahead one hour before you turn in for the day. We will wake up Sunday morning to a magically disappeared hour. It evaporated while most of us were sleeping. So we wouldn’t notice?
On January 3, 2025, Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) introduced The Sunshine Protection Act of 2025. It was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and there it sits. It would make daylight savings time the new, Permanent Standard Time.
It’s been sitting in committee for over a year. No discussion, no debate, no votes.
Perhaps the legislators have more important issues on their plates?
And so, while I’m partial to bluebirds for political reasons, ;-) it’s pretty exciting to watch the bright red breast of a robin as it pulls up a wiggly worm in the green, green grass of home.
I’m reading Asterwood by Jacquelyn Stolos (RandomHouse Children’s Books/Delacorte Press, 2025). Written for 5th - 8th graders, the main character, Madelyn, discovers a wild and magical world through the woods behind her house. With the help of her new friends, she works to save this world and discover its secrets, while uncovering some pretty fantastic secrets of her own.
--Be curious! (and watch for signs of Spring)
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