Blossoms and Blue Skies

Fri­day the 13th of April is not an unlucky day this year. It’s the day when spring has final­ly arrived. Blue skies, coat-free weath­er, and the bloom­ing mag­no­lia near our front door. So I’m not look­ing for an ill wind, def­i­nite­ly!

I use that mag­no­lia tree rather like a cal­en­dar. What date did the first buds pop? When did they drop? (Noto­ri­ous­ly, they don’t last long.) Even, in the win­ter, when did snow fall and set­tle in clumps on the branch­es? In fact, before I knew it was a mag­no­lia (umm, I’m not even sure of that), one win­ter I began call­ing it our Pop­corn Tree after those clumps formed. My imag­i­na­tion turned them into pop­corn balls dec­o­rat­ing a Christ­mas tree. This year my pop­corn tree cal­en­dar tells me we have a very late spring. One year, at this time, not only had the buds dropped and scat­tered, but full-sized leaves cov­ered the tree.

To put a bit of writer/reader con­tent in this blog, let me point out that I’ve filled two para­graphs with spring blath­er. And, this morn­ing I filled even more para­graphs with the next scene of my some­time-in-the-future mys­tery, plus delet­ed two para­graphs I wrote yes­ter­day. So, that’s progress. Right?

Now for a ques­tion I real­ly want an answer or twelve to—are there any mys­ter­ies that have spring, or a change of sea­sons as a vital clue? Or even a pass­ing ref­er­ence? I scanned titles, but didn’t find a one. Do you have an answer?