Spring Fever

Okay, I’ll admit it! Spring may be my favorite season, if for no other reason than; I get cabin fever in the winter, and I can’t wait to poke my nose outside and get some fresh air and sunshine. Even though I get tired of the rain, I like the rain, especially when it rains hard and makes the skylights on my house roar. The early rains of Fall make the dry brown grass start to turn green again in an early promise of renewal. Mother nature likes to tease me with little promises. A blade of grass here, and Daffodil or two there. Pretty soon about the 1st of February I start itching to get outside.

The ground hog comes out on the 2nd of February and always has discouraging news about more of a long winter. I grumble to myself; what does a ground hog really know anyway. I pass it all off as Ground Hogwash. But, the rains keep coming. Soon, I can’t stand it, and I go for a walk in the rain. I don’t wear a raincoat because for some reason the locals never wore raincoats. If it was raining too hard we didn’t go out in the rain. There was an old expression about “not being smart enough to come in out of the rain”, so locals just didn’t go out when it was raining too hard. If you had work to do outside, you would just wait until the hard showers were over, step outside when it slowed down, then come back inside when it started raining too hard again. Because, we had great pride in having sense enough to come in out of the rain.

The Newcomers that came up here to get back-to-the-land, showed up dressed like later-day Daniel Boones, complete with a Jim Bowie knife strapped to their belts and a coonskin cap. They smelled like patchouli oil, B.O. and dirt. I don’t see any of those guys any more. I think that they got rich and winter-up in Puerto whatch-a-ma-callit now.

The thing that we always noticed about the newcomers is they had raincoats and Vibram soled barn boots. When it was raining hard the locals would sit inside, usually in a restaurant booth with a good view of the street. We’d look out the windows and watch the newcomers walking up and down the street in the rain. One of us would mumble, “look at them damn fools, no sense to come out of the rain”. Then we’d feel real good about ourselves, being inside where it was dry and smart.

If one of them would head for the door we would bet whether they would wipe their feet or just track mud all over hell. We had a theory that city bred people didn’t know how to wipe their feet, because they’d never seen mud before. Humboldt County must have been a wonderful learning experience for them.

But, I was talking about spring wasn’t I. About the middle of February there is a little flower that comes out that is a real pretty flower. It only grows in complete shade. It only blooms for a short time. We called it a Zebra Flower, because it has three Zebra striped petals about ¾ inch long it has long green waxy leaves, with pea sized grey/green spots on them. The Newcomers call them “Slink Pods”. They are very abundant, but unknown by most people, because few people walk around in a dripping wet forest in mid-February. Just us cabin fever types.

As kids we would tell the girls that if they picked a bunch of them and rubbed them between their hands and rubbed it on their arms, they would smell like flowers. Which is true. They would smell just like Zebra Flowers, otherwise known as The FETID Adders Tongue. Fetid like in rotten meat.

Slink pod photo by:

Brother Eric Vogel, F.S.C.

The Indian warriors start blooming in February and into March I learned from Kym the other day that Indian warrior was a parasite plant that grows of the roots of other plants, just like mistletoe grows of the limbs. Why didn’t I know that? I’m ashamed that I didn’t, but at least Kym knew it.

The Buckeye trees are starting to get small leaves, and the Dogwood is starting to get green colored buds. I saw three gray squirrels doing the squirrel thing, where they circle the tree at blinding speed, chasing each other. They speed around the tree at such a blinding speed that you can’t tell who is chasing who. I had to laugh. Even the squirrels are getting kinky nowadays. A manage a trois of squirrels??? That’s just a little to squirrelly for me!

The skunks are breeding, I’m not really sure why Skunks think that the only place that they can breed in in the middle of the freeway. You can expect to see, and smell, a lot of road-flattened skunks in your travels.

Now, if you are a Birder, the swallows should be showing up any day now. So start watching. See if you can be the first to see a swallow. They show up at Benbow, because they nest in the freeway underpass. They fly up into the little holes in the bridge and nest inside. I usually don’t look for them, I just notice one day that; “Hey, the Swallows are back”.

Photo of Clif Swallow By Dori



The bridge used to be great habitat for them, because of the lake, and the bugs that the lake provided. It will be interesting to see if the swallows can survive without the lake. I know that the Newcomers want to take the dam out, because it was not their idea, but I feel that the dam was beneficial for the fish, in that it provider deep water pooling that was lost due to the erosion that the floods caused. But, what do I know. Time will tell, and as always, it will be too late.

But, spring is coming!