April 25th
The 115th Day of the Year
And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Sprit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
The snowdrop and then the violet,
Arose from the ground with warm rain wet;
Percy Bysshe Shelly
Sunrise/set: 5:43/7:23
Day’s Length: 13 hours 40 minutes
Average High/Low: 66/44
Average Temperature: 55
Record High: 89 – 1915
Record Low: 26 – 1919
Weather
Chances of highs in the 80s are the highest so far in the year – 25 percent, and 70s occur another 25 percent, 60s yet another 25 percent. Fifties come 20 percent, 40s five percent. The sun shines almost 70 percent of the days; rain falls 35 to 40 percent. Frost: 25 percent chance, the last time this spring that the chances are so high.
Natural Calendar
The season of Late Spring usually has five gentle cool fronts and stretches from the end of April until the end of May in the Lower Midwest and Middle Atlantic region (occurs at least a month earlier in the South). Most spring woodland flowers complete their bloom during this time, and almost all the trees leaf out. Frost season ends, and gardeners sow tender garden flowers and vegetables. Farmers put in all the corn and soybeans and prepare for the first cut of hay. The day’s length grows until it surpasses fourteen hours along the 40th Parallel.
During Late Spring, the time of flowering fruit trees slowly comes to a close, and the great dandelion bloom of Middle Spring turns to gray and fragile seeds just as dogwoods open. Bamboo stalks have reached at least three feet tall, and peony buds are as big around as pennies. All the gold disappears from Middle Spring’s forsythia as daisies bud, and ferns unravel. The six-petaled white star of Bethlehem and the four-petaled pink and purple sweet rockets tell the time of year throughout the pastures.
Lilies of the valley have their bells, and the first bright yellow cressleaf groundsel is opening in wetlands. Rhubarb pies are growing everywhere as the first strawberry flowers, as Virginia creepers get their new shiny leaves, as azaleas brighten and as honeysuckle leaves turn the undergrowth deep May green. Earliest grasses go to seed.
Migrations of the white-throated sparrow, ruby-crowned kinglet, yellow-rumped warbler, black-and-white warbler, palm warbler, Nashville warbler, swamp sparrow, and hermit thrush reach as far north as Lake Erie.
Daybook
1980: The new cherry tree in the back yard has come into bloom.
1983: First robins heard at 4:17 a.m. Probably began earlier. Most forsythia flowers gone.
1984: Buds on bleeding heart. First pink magnolia blooms.
1986: First June bug on the front screen.
1987: Peach and cherry trees end their bloom cycle, apple still holds. Meadow parsnip and catchweed coming in.
1989: Crab apples in the village early full bloom. Pollen count is high from maples and oaks.
1990: Suddenly days in the 80s, garlic mustard comes into early full bloom. Apple and cherry are all open.
1991: Full bloom cherry, peach, apple, dogwoods, redbuds: the peak of all the flowering trees in Yellow Springs. At South Glen: blue cohosh with green-gold flowers, wild geranium, spring cress, ragwort, phlox, white and yellow violets, toad trillium, trillium grandiflorum all full bloom. Wood thrush mating song heard, more elaborate than the cardinal’s. Ash trees leaves about an inch long along Corey Street.
1992: Ferns a foot high now. Wisteria getting leaves.
1993: End of the east garden daffodils.
1994: I heard the high chant of the American toads coming from Grinnell pond, the first time this year.
1998: Confined to the chair by the side of the pond by a touch of pneumonia, the sun warming me, cardinals, doves, robins singing. Carpenter bees at work all along the south wall of the house. The first fleabane opened overnight. Daisy buds are stretching, showing white. One of last year’s purple pansies is open. Wood hyacinth has opened around the cherry tree.
1999: While I was gone to Minnesota, the toad laid eggs, and the white lilac came into full bloom. The peonies are almost full size now. A few daisies show buds. Two cabbage butterflies play in the garden, and the apple tree blooms in the yard. The late maples in front of our house are finally blossoming, and everything is filling in except the Osage and the locust. All the daffodils, except for the small double ones, are gone. Poppy foliage about a foot and a half, pacing the comfrey. Poplar leaves are the size of a squirrel’s ear. Blue jay bell call common since mid April, cardinal sings all day, toad calling at 8:25 p.m. even though eggs have been laid. Dogwoods have opened now, following the pear-redbud-crabapple sequence.
2002: Rapid petal fall throughout the area, flowers engulfed now by leaves.
2003: Apple petal fall has begun, and redbuds are getting leaves. Silver olive buds pace the honeysuckle buds. At South Glen, ginger and May apples have buds, chickweed foliage turning pale with age. Buckeyes, late red magnolias, and lilacs remain in flower. Wisteria has come in along the highways. A volunteer pansy blossomed in the east garden.
2005: Creeping phlox common in Cedarville. Small Japanese maples seem fully leafed throughout. Full bloom dandelions, redbud, apple, red quince. Willow half leafed. Viburnum coming in at home.
2006: The yellow-bellied woodpecker continues its harsh call throughout the day – has been calling since February.
2007: Last night the wind blew hard across the village. I lay awake for a while and worried about the aging Osage orange falling into the shed or crushing Jean’s favorite redbud tree, maybe reaching the new porch and taking out the past summer’s work.
This morning before sunrise I am sitting on that porch; we all survived the storm unscathed. The sky is clear deep blue, Jupiter still visible in the southwest. The robins have been singing for more than an hour; cardinals and doves just joined in a few minutes ago. Now the shiny grackles come through the high trees, gliding from their secret nests; cackling and clucking, they move down among the black branches.
When I first came outside, I looked for light frost on the grass, but the lawn was wet and dark. Now it reflects the glow in the east behind me over Glen Helen. The air is humid and still. Crows call to the west, and I hear the crows I hunted as a child in Wisconsin. They were wily, untouchable crows, and they watched me from high cottonwoods until I stepped within maybe a city block of them, and then up they went screaming.
I open the journal of Thomas Merton that I have been reading this past week, captured by his journey toward death. It is still too dark to make out the words. I think about one of the things Peter Matthiessen learned from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, that “a man’s last thoughts will determine the quality of his reincarnation.” I am coming to the last year of Merton’s life. I want to see what he was like in those last days. I want to read his last thoughts. Of course, my own last days and thoughts are what really concern me.
When it is light enough to read, I am pulled in a different direction. I am captured by the sunlight spreading down the locust trees that line the far edge of the property. I close the journal, and I wait for cabbage butterflies and the first bees.
2008: South to Crossville, Tennessee: Departing Yellow Springs at the beginning of redbud and crabapple bloom, the peak of dandelion, pear and serviceberry bloom, the high canopy flushed but still dominated by the darkness of branches. The redbuds mark the highways all the way into Tennessee, lush and violet against the gathering greens. Dogwoods marked the woods, especially south of Lexington and though the mountains near Knoxville and west. All the hills had lost their March gray, were now clumped with every shade of gold and emerald. Along the Clinch River valley, the canopy seemed complete for miles at a time. Throughout Tennessee, bridal wreath, snowball viburnum, fleabane, azalea, wisteria, pussy toes, lilac, thyme-leafed speedwell, iris, fire pink, wild strawberry, bluets, mountain laurel, and buckeye were all in flower.
2011: Cardinal heard at 5:20 this morning, singing steadily in the rain. Flooding in the yard continues, gray skies all day. Some grackles paired up in the front yard today; they have been gradually thinning at the back feeder, like the starlings did about a month ago. Greg’s lily-of-the-valley patch is showing a lot of white buds. Our front crab apple is starting to bloom, as are many more in town. The azalea is trying to match the apples but is a little behind. Dandelions still very strong throughout my walk, redbuds full bloom, most pears coming down, their white petals covering patches of the sidewalk along High Street. The fifty red tulips in the circle garden remain erect and bright. Robin vespers at 8:00 this evening, but no grackles heard.
2012: A considerable contrast with last year on this date: Our front crab apple has been done blooming for at least a week, our azalea has been in full bloom for at least that long. Redbuds are all gone to leaves, only a couple of scraggly tulips are left, pears having dropped their petals in March, dandelions and violets gone, lily-of-the- valley full bloom now. Late this afternoon, I walked at the Siebenthaler Fen, a wetland habitat along Big Beaver Creek. Yellow roses seen on the way there. Inventory: Horsetail, current, tall and common ragwort, viburnum in bloom, maples, buckeyes, euonymus vines, sweet Cicely in full flower, ironweed maybe two feet, skunk cabbage with huge leaves, garlic mustard, ground ivy, cattails, water willow, box elders, winter cress full, teasel stalks, large aster leaves, curly dock, corn salad in flower, the scrawny budded dogwoods that I saw at the quarry and the Koogler wetlands, red-winged blackbirds nesting and singing, meadow rue (not budded yet), small-flowered buttercup, spring cress, cowslip, black raspberry, a mimosa plant, rushes of swamp iris, parsnip leaves, hemlock, common violets, multiflora roses, geese flying back and forth, several unidentified foliage clusters, along with what may be a swamp saxifrage.
2013: I went outside at 3:50 this morning, frost on the grass, full moon setting in the southwest, only a few robins twittering. Suddenly at 3:55, the chorus began throughout the neighborhood. At 4:02, the cardinals came in. When I went back outside at 4:20, the doves and song sparrows were singing.
2015: The sweet cherry blossoms are gone now, their season short like that of the serviceberries. Along the south and north borders, hackberries are in flower.
2016: Peter Hayes reports: “First hummingbird on the feeder right outside our kitchen window.” This is just a day later than the one sighted by Ruth Paige in 2008 and three days before Rebecca Ramsey-Fenton’s in 1986. The small bright red insect noticed as I worked the garden getting ready to plant zinnias. Joe Pye plants just emerging, a couple taller. Near Jeanie’s fern garden: sweet Cicely underway. Honeysuckles budded. Leaving the house with Jill at about 7:00 this evening, I saw that the first wild geranium and the very first red azalea blossom had opened in the dooryard garden (some azaleas down the street completely covered with pink blossoms). Walking home at dusk, I heard robins and cardinals at vespers. When I arrived home, I found the first June bug under the porch light. Peter Hayes also reported his first June bug tonight. In 1981, I found the first June bug on the 26th.
2017: Muxia, Spain: Flowers tucked into the walls around the city, some sorrel, some speedwell, some clovers, a few smaller purple thistles with leaves of variegated color – cream and green, many sow thistles, tall mallows and many fields of wild calla lilies only a little past their prime. From Yellow Springs, Jill sends a photo of the circle garden full of blossoming hyacinths.
2019: Jogging beyond Ellis Pond with Ranger, beside the lengthening bright grass, the bittercress, purple deadnettle, dandelions, spring beauties, violets, field peppergrass, shepherd’s purse and field pennycress. Across the fields, the woodlots show patchy green, pale, luminescent. In town, tulips and crab apples seem to be in full bloom.
2020: At Ellis, cypress trees show half-inch foliage now, and dogwoods are opening. Cold wind and rain today, a high of only 46, a rare April 26th.
A floating chronology is a sequence of events whose dates are all known in relation to one another, yet the time when the sequence as a whole occurred is unknown.
Martin Gorst