April 19th
The 109th Day of the Year
For you the roving spirit of the wind
Blows Spring abroad; for you the teeming clouds
Descend in gladsome plenty o’er the world;
And the sun sheds his kindest rays for you,
Ye flower of human race!
James Thomson
Sunrise/set: 5:52/7:17
Day’s Length: 13 hours 25 minutes
Average High/Low: 64/42
Average Temperature: 53
Record High: 84 – 1985
Record Low: 22 – 1983
Weather
Today is yet another pivot point for spring: from now on a high temperature below 40 degrees is extremely unlikely until October. Chances of highs in the 80s are five percent, of 70s thirty percent, of 60s thirty percent, of 50s twenty-five percent, of 40s ten percent. And from this point forward, the number of frosts in any given seven days declines by nearly two percent per 24 hours. The sun shines 65 percent of the time on April 19th, and rain falls one day out of every three.
Natural Calendar
The third week of Middle Spring punctuates the end of tobacco bed seeding (and half the beds show leaves) in the Border States. Farmers seed spring wheat in New England, sugar beets all across the Midwest. Field corn planting is in full swing throughout the South, cotton planting along the Gulf.
The boxwood psyllid starts to attack the boxwoods as Middle Spring deepens. Dogwood borers are at work on the dogwoods. The great spring dandelion bloom fades between now and the first week of Late Spring. In Japan, cherry blossoms have reached their best. Wisteria and azaleas will bloom in early May there, rhododendrons from mid May to mid June – not unlike the blooming patterns in the Lower Midwest of the United States during cooler years.
Daybook
1982: Mill Habitat: Watercress has white flowers in the small pond behind the dam.
1984: Upper Grinnell path at North Glen: Trillium grandiflorum have been up a few days, spring beauty budding.
1985: Redbuds and crab apple trees open overnight. Viburnum is coming in along Limestone Street. Winged ants (maybe termites migrating) are falling from the trees along the river. Grapes have been leafing for three or four days.
1987: First small bleeding hearts formed today.
1988: Some pokeweed three feet, the same height as at Jekyll island on the Georgia coast in mid-March. Bleeding hearts with one-inch hearts.
1990: Fishing at Caesar Creek: no bites all day, but the land full of sound, frogs chanting, flickers mating, nesting.
1991: To Wisconsin, from Yellow Springs and full Middle Spring, with the maples and cottonwood starting to leaf, forsythia and daffodils fading, apple and cherry trees in full bloom, tulips mid season, grass long and green. Past Dayton, lilacs seen, silver olive leafing, poplars pale green. The landscape stays almost unchanged until I get above Urbana, Illinois.
At El Paso, Illinois, above Bloomington, the apples are no longer flowering. A few miles north, near Peru, redbuds become paler. At Rockford, the tree line is suddenly bare. Only the willows, yellow green, stand out in the suburbs. Near Madison, only a few patches of flowering trees (this is Yellow Springs a month ago; I have traveled 600 miles and 30 days back into winter at the rate of one day for every 20 miles). Just willows and honeysuckles leafing. Early tulips, daffodils, magnolia just opening, peonies and rhubarb only six to nine inches.
1992: Ginkgoes leaf. Maple full flower, exotic, waving in the wind, watercress full bloom, magnolia and ash leafing.
1993: Into Xenia today, some weeping cherry trees with pale violet blossoms, full bloom. In the evening, the first ichneumon flies around the light in my office. The first bumblebee of the year working in the purple deadnettle after supper, temperature only in the 50s.
1995: At South Glen woods, phlox and early meadow rue have headed up. In town, crab apples start to open. Outside my classroom in Wilberforce, one apple, deep red-purple, is almost in full bloom. From my office window, I notice the ginkgo leafing for the first time. Across the lawn, the sugar gum is coming out too.
1999: Spring beauties hold full, daffodils declining, mid-season tulips full, quinces full, many pears full, many leafing. No toads heard yet this year.
2000: To Cincinnati and the zoo: viburnums all in bloom here, the bridal wreath too, red and violet azaleas, large white dogwoods, lilacs, and wisteria. Late tulips still quite strong, but only the latest varieties of daffodils, the white and the miniature yellow jonquils. Blue wood hyacinths and tall, six-petaled, pale blue star hyacinths were also in the middle of their season. Columbines at their peak here and forget-me-nots, candytuft, yellow comfrey, exotic snow wreath shrub (neviusia). The first honeysuckles were starting to open, and Jacob’s ladder had just ended.
2001: Visited my ginkgo at Wilberforce: leafing out on schedule.
2002: First cressleaf groundsel, first garlic mustard, first white wood hyacinths, first fleabane, first water lily leaves (brown from winter). Poison ivy leaves are between a half inch and an inch long. Some Virginia creeper leaves up to two inches. Full bloom white bleeding heart, money plant, and winter cress. Buds on the peonies. Hemlock foliage knee high, purple loosestrife ten inches, black-eyed Susan three inches, large blue hosta and mallow eight inches, Asiatic lilies and motherwort 12 inches, knotweed two to four feet, Dutch iris 18 inches. Pussy willows, honeysuckles and forsythia at least half leafed.
2003: The north garden ferns have grown from nothing (six days ago) to about a foot tall. Garlic mustard, a few daisies, some fleabane budding, sweet rocket stalks rising. White bleeding heart – and the pink – have several large hearts. Pink lungwort flowers remain in bloom. Now the garden weeds take off just as the lilies reach three or four inches. Pears leafing, linden leaves the size of a quarter, Lil’s maple filling in quickly. At South Glen this morning, delicate cobwebs, shining in the sun, were hanging in the dry corymbs of last year’s ironweed. We passed one large web, too, woven between wingstem stalks.
2004: Crabapples are early flowering as pears and forsythia leaf out. Petal-fall is rapid on the pink magnolias (the white fell about a week ago) and on the Dayton Street serviceberries. Mid-season daffodils are almost done, pink hyacinths hold but are getting a little raggedy. Windflowers and early tulips continue to blossom. One purple azalea bush in Cedarville was in full bloom. In the wind, the winter wheat quivers, but it is not long enough to ripple.
2006: Strawberries and cressleaf groundsel have buds. Japanese knotweed has grown up to my waist. Lindens, red oaks and ash all have one-inch leaves. Many apples and redbuds in full bloom. Garlic mustard has started to open.
2007: A female starling started to attack the chimney for the first time this morning. I made a note of this on May 1 last year, but the activity had begun before that date.
2008: The redbuds blush in the back yard, and the western tree line is golden with box elder flowers. Japanese knotweed is about a foot high. Grackles, cardinals, doves, robins, starlings, song sparrows singing, a background like the sky. In Madison, Wisconsin, my sister Tat says that she has a couple of daffodils, one tulip blooming and that her peonies are about three inches, daylilies almost six. Hail fell this afternoon about 3:00 o’clock. The ginkgo at the corner of Limestone has finally started to leaf out. Red quince flowers at both ends of the block. Sweet gum buds are huge, straining to unfold. Crab apple trees have all their buds. Redbuds are fully budded now. Squills and grape hyacinths are fading in the yard.
2009: Don’s pie cherry opened during the night, and the serviceberry flowers are looking old. I have never seen so many birds courting and flying back and forth: grackles, starlings, robins, cardinals, blue jays, sparrows. Garlic mustard heading but short in the alley.
2011: Thunderstorms to the south all night, and heavy rain flooded the backyard in places, filled the pond. The flowers on Don’s serviceberry trees have turned to berry buds, and leaves have formed around them. Oakleaf hydrangeas are leafing, and one snowball viburnum seen opening in the village. In the park, one apple tree has come into full bloom, others well budded. The hawthorn has small buds. Some of Greg’s lily-of-the valley is leafing. More rain in the afternoon, the entire back patio and side yard flooded, streets and stores and cars flooded in Kettering. Robins, doves and grackles still call in the evening.
2012: Peak of violet hyacinths, white hyacinths, Indian hyacinths, bridal wreath spirea, sweet Cicely, lamium purpureum, honeysuckles, late dogwoods. Bamboo is up to ten feet tall now, and knotweed in the Phillips Street alley is over my head. Redbuds are all to leaves, many Asiatic lilies budded. Many ferns are completely developed. Another red admiral butterfly came by the yard again today. All of the pink quince flowers have fallen now. The new bamboo, so tall, has started to shed its sheathes.
2013: The cherry tree Jeanie and I planted maybe four or five years ago, a tree with a gangly shape and few leaves, is finally in bloom, having come in with the storm and the cold front last night, looks like it might have a handful or two of sweet cherries for the grackles. North wind throughout the day, flurries, rain, stratus clouds coming across all the lush pear and cherry and plum and serviceberry flowers, the first redbuds, delaying the crab apples and the dogwoods. In all the chill today, I found the first watercress in bloom at Ellis Pond in one of the narrow backstreams.
2014: The river birch in the back yard is just starting to push out., the cherry not flowering yet. Mid-season daffodils hold and several tulips. No sign of life on the roses. At Ellis Pond arboretum, lots of budding: sawtooth oak, linden basswood, ginkgo, Norway maple, red horse chestnut. Yellow buckeye buds are bursting into two-inch palmate leaf clusters. Persian Parrotia, Katsura tree and mountain ash have small leaves. Pears and serviceberries full throughout town, some star magnolias that survived the frost.. Some red quince opening on the north side of the yard and along High Street. Puschkinias all gone now, squills fading with the early daffodils. Foliage of snowdrops floppy, will soon be covered by the hosta (now one to three inches throughout the garden).
2015: Return from Gethsemani: A weekend of heat and rain has pulled Middle Spring down on top of everything. The changes a litany: the early yellow tulips gone, the mid-season tulips full, the yellow daffodils gone, the bicolor and white daffodils still strong. The fruit trees coming into full bloom. Peonies are tall and just beginning to bud; heliopsis three inches, monarda low and bushy, lily-of-the-valley to four or five inches, some hostas are leafing now, others just emerging, bluebells in the back yard and the alley all blue, day lilies full and up to two feet tall, Asiatic and oriental lilies to three inches, Jeanie’s fern garden coming back with at least five varieties emerged, the other ferns tall as the peonies, a few lilac blossoms along the south garden, waterleaf covering the redbud garden and growing tall around the pond, more bamboo piercing the ground, some (like the alley knotweed) up to my waist, hops tangling around the tall decorative grasses, new astilbes starting up in the dooryard, garlic mustard budded, lamium deep pink, profusion of violets and dandelions in the grass, allium, Indian hyacinths and wood hyacinths budded in the circle garden – ready to replace the daffodils, weeds getting out of hand throughout the more neglected garden patches, a snowball viburnum seen along Limestone Street, bittersweet starting to leaf in the alley. I saw a fledgling dove by the stone wall, brother or sister to the one Monk caught a few days ago. Hopefully this one will stay alive. As always I am behind in getting the ground prepared for seeding annuals. Hard wind this evening, cold spell moving in quickly.
2016: Return from Gethsemani: All the grape hyacinths and scilla are gone. Blooming celandine and the red crabapple in the yard, the first lilacs at home and down Greene Street. Ferns up a foot or two, bamboo to eight inches, the early tulips gone, standard tulips full bloom, the daffodils considerably thinned but still beautiful, the first hyacinths at Jill’s with first petals, mine with flower stalks rising, bluebells and lungwort very bright and strong, lily-of-the-valley about ready to bud, the earliest hostas well leafed but others just emerging or unfolding, garlic mustard budding, all the crab apples in town, including my red one, open, many dogwoods too. . Violets fill the lawns all about, matching the abundance and timing of the Great Dandelion Bloom. Rhubarb leaves are almost the size of my hand. Milkweed stalks are three inches high. The deep pink azalea in front of the house is cracking. Lizard’s tail has put out a few short leaflets. Hops is rank, running through the honeysuckles. From Fontanelli in Italy, Neysa reports her cyclamens continue to flower, but they are being covered by their own foliage.
2017: Negreira to Vilaserio, Spain: Once again perfect weather for a climb into the mountains. A drier habitat, less rich variety of plants. Borage, lamium, violets, clovers, buttercups, ginestra, English plantain and tall-flowered plantain common. Some flax seen, some blue speedwell, a few hyacinths, several clumps of wild purple columbine. Blackberry brambles appear again along the fences. Like yesterday, relatively few eucalyptus trees. Crab apples with half their flowers down. The pathway cluttered with catkins from last week’s bloom.
As Middle Spring loses its power, I continue to walk parallel to it, conscious of how I have moved beside it. So the season and my trek stay connected with motion, developing together without conscious purpose or intent. I realize that I have left the height of April behind in Santiago and Madrid. I associate that flowering with my own presence, feeling that my presence was parallel to those events and was defined by them.
The stream of my travel deliberately holds to the unfolding of Galician April, disorienting me from my American experiences so tied to speed and at the same time to home. I move with this walk in which I hardly separate myself from the unfolding, and in which the pilgrimage blurs distinction between my consciousness of myself and of the landscape.
2018: To Keuka Lake in New York, cold and snow all the way. From Chicago, Tat reports four stinkbugs on the 9th floor of her hotel. Here by the lake, a few small jonquils are open, one stubby grape hyacinth, a few violets brave the weather.
2019: Cold and rain in the 40s. Most of the early narcissus blossoms have wilted now. Scilla are gone. In downtown Delaware, Ohio, a little north of Columbus, apple blossoms were pushing off the crab apples of last year onto the sidewalk/
For us the winds do blow,
The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow:
Nothing we see but means our good,
As our delight, or as our treasure.
George Herbert