Spring in Mt. Auburn

Today was a beautiful, sunny spring day, which finally started feeling like spring was finally here.  After the long, cold winter, the trees are a little late in budding and flowering.

I took a walk through the beautiful landscapes of the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, here in my home town of Cambridge.  Some of the photos I took are in a reflective blog post.  But there were so many wonderful vista that I decided to post some more of them here.

The Flowering and the Budding

It's theoretically spring here in the Boston area after a particularly brutal winter of bleak frostiness.  So there is hope, even if the temperature is only in the 50s (F) or about 10-13 deg. C.  Semi-brrrrrr weather in the morning.

We're a couple of weeks late this year, but finally trees are flowering and budding.  The Flowering and the Budding are micro-seasons within the Spring, that precede the Leafing Out.

The beauty of spring is before our eyes, even if the air temperature isn't reinforcing our sensory perception.  But with the cool temperatures, it's hard to get into my "I'm in love with spring!" mood.

But if I get out on my bicycle and ride for 3 or 4 miles, I warm up enough to sort of enjoy the sights.  And the brightness of forsythia flowers translates into happy feelings within me.  

Here's a smattering of the signs of hope in our fair city of Cambridge (and one across the river in Brighton).

Blue flowering groundcover brightens the brown litter of leaves from last fall.

I love the contrast of the pink flowers against the blue sky.

While flowering tree towering over an historic property, just off Tory Row (aka, Brattle Street).

The Budding, a week or two before the Leafing Out, differs in timing depending on species and microclimate, where warmer and more sheltered locations leading the trend.  By mid-May, the Leafing Out will be complete.

The Budding on a privet hedge.

One view outside Cambridge shows the Budding of brush and trees on the banks of a small channel off the Charles River in Brighton.

Around Town

Swan boats in the lagoon at Boston's
Public Garden

The spring is a time when, even in the city and the urban environs, we can see the subtle changes of the season.  This makes me more observant of the little details all around, as I walk around, to and from work, or going about the chores, or out on a bike ride.  Once in a while, I'm lucky to capture just some snippets of the visual feast all around.  This post is just a sample of them.

A view through the graceful drapings of the willows on the banks of the
lagoon at the Public Garden, just steps from my office. 

I just love this collection of flowers in a garden near my home in Cambridge.

My favorite footbridge is constructed with steel arches and cables
 supporting the wood deck.  This is the Blue Heron Bridge over the
Charles River between Newton (foreground) and Watertown, on a June
Sunday as I was biking the river paths out to Waltham.

I loved the lighting of early evening as the somber crowd leaves Fenway Park.
The "green monster" seats hang over Landsdowne Street.  Sox lost 3-2 to Cleveland.

Sunset over the Charles, framed by the Boston University Bridge.

The Hope of Spring

This has been a particularly brutal winter.  Not so much was it the greater than normal snowfall, but the bitter, bitter cold that numbed the hands, even with gloves on.  It was both discouraging and certainly depressing.

So, with March comes the mini-season of "Hope of Spring."  Sometimes we see something budding, such as the first signs of our jonquils budding in the front planter, which gets the afternoon sun.

The first hope for spring in the garden:  the jonquils are budding!

Later on a walk to Harvard Square to get a few gifts for the little girl I babysit (Naomi), I ran into a couple staring at the snow drops emerging from the dirt and leaf litter, just off the brick sidewalk.

Left:  tiny snow drops emerge from the cold ground on a sunny March afternoon.
Right:  crocuses emerge from the leaf litter in a Cambridge garden.

It's March and the March flowers (jonquils) are slowly reaching up for the sunshine.

Almost there:  the jonquils just need one warm sunny day to convince them to open their yellow flower and smile as the sun.  Yes, the Hope of Spring has come!

The Budding Out

Boston's Public Garden

Spring is my favorite of the seasons.  We have the beauty of rebirth to ac-company the warmer days and the end of that season of frigidness and the all-too-many forms of frozen precipitation.

While many consider it a season, but for the observer of the signs in nature, spring consists of many subseasons.   One of the first subseasons is the "Almost Spring" with the first signs of crocuses blooming and  the sign of buds on the limbs of trees and bushes.

Forsythia flowers transition to
green buds.  The forest  prepares
for The Budding Out

Right now we're come to "The Budding Out."  This is a short 2 to 3-week subseason.  Yet it is the most transformative subseason of the entire Spring.  In these few weeks, bare limbs become enveloped in the new greens of spring. 

Once The Budding Out has transpired, we're just about ready for summer.  Lawns need mowing.  There is shade on those days when the temperature gets up there.  There is no question any more:  spring has come!

The wonderful colors of the budding out:  the delicate yellows and deep red buds.

Forsythia flowering amid the early buds, in a field of bare branches.  It is The Budding Out.

The Almost Spring

Spring officially begins with the equinox on March 21st. But in New England, winter is still roaring, its cold winds blowing over snow-covered fields and around the urban canyons, as the people scurry about clad in parkas, scarves and wool hats.

But sometimes in late March, or at least in early April, the season of “Almost Spring” arrives. There are the first signs of live re-emerging from the barren brown earth.

This is one of my favorite moments of the year. The potential energy of nature is at its greatest. It’s as though everything is almost ready to bloom, but instead nature carefully tests the air. A few crocuses emerge, flowering close to the brown soil finally feeling the distinctive warmth of a spring sun. Stronger in intensity than the winter sun, the radiant warmth is lost in the chilled air, trying but not yet succeeding in escaping winter’s grasp.

The trees bud, but are not ready to leaf out. This is the shy half of spring.

Come the second half of April, the shyness passes. All manner of trees and flowering shrubs and spring flowers burst forth. Before May Day, the trees will be fully leafed out.

But, these first weeks of April are when we can take hope from all the potential of beauty that surrounds us. Life is rebirth in spring, for nature, and for me.

Below: The crocuses, first flowers of spring, stay low to the otherwise barren earth. A warm day may be followed by a snowy day, in the Amost Spring.
Below: In a classic rural farmland vista 35 miles north of Boston, the brown fields are finally visible after months of dormancy under its white winter blanket. No color is visible in the Almost Spring.
Below: The plump red buds of the maple tree in front of my home, in contrast the the bright blue sky of the Amost Spring.
Below: Green buds on the sapling in the foreground and the yellow buds of the great willow in the background. We are only a week or so from everthing leafing out.

In the Mist Outside the Science Center and Other Photos of a Sunny Friday

Friday afternoon before Memorial Day, I scheduled a late afternoon appointment near home. That gave me the opportunity to just stroll around on a most beautiful, warm, sunny late day in spring! Living a short walk from the campus of Harvard University, I headed in that direction.

Right: sunlight in the tree canopy over Harvard Street.

Below: a view through the mist of the spray founation outside the Harvard Science Center. I spent many a hot afternoon here with my toddlers who enjoyed a bit of the cool spray. Also, Memorial Hall in the background is also famous as the "analog" structure from which the CG version of the Great Hall at Hogwarts was created for the Harry Potter movies.

Below: a young woman finds the stones of the fountain a convenient place to sit while making a call.

I Don't Think We're Still in Cambridge, Children!

That's the feeling I have everytime I walk into this little isolated part of my current home town of Cambridge. This little neighborhood is off the beaten path, partly bordered by the sprawling campus of Harvard University. While the rest of Cambridge is very much a city -- high rise buildings, the subway, closely spaced building, itsy bitsy back yards -- I enter this area and everything changes!

This was a favorite place to stroll when my children were little. First, it was quiet! All those city noise of traffic and people and activity are gone. The houses feel like I'm in the suburbs, maybe an older suburb with a slightly rural character as afforded by the canopy of very mature trees. Some trees, like the one on the right, have grown into the street, beyond the curbline. This never happens in the rest of the city.

There are lawns and real backyards. There are even some single-family houses, which are a rarity in a city of triple deckers (3-family homes with one unit on each floor).

I still enjoy strolling here, and did so today on this beautiful, sunny Sunday in May. Thought the photographs you can join me on a stoll through this part of Cambridge which doesn't feel like we're still in Cambridge.

The Coming of My Favorite Season

Ah, spring is finally here! For me, spring is the season of hope. The season of potential. Little green buds emerge from the ground, and weeks later, grow into the first flowers of the year. The landscape is still mostly brown and gray of the winter groundcover. Yet these first flowers inspire hope.

It reminds me of looking at my babies when they were new to this world. They were a bundle of potential -- what would they become? What would they be like?

So, too with the first buds of spring: what wonderful flowers will bloom? And what will this new year be for all of us? Here is a sampling showing the coming of spring here in the city. (Some other photos are included in my Other Thoughts blog: "Almost Spring!" and "A Beautiful Day in March.")

Below left: The happy faces of my daffodils blooming in the sunshine of a warm 1st day of spring. Below right: some crocuses blooming in the yard next door.

Below: My jonquils (march flowers) a few days before they bloomed.


Below (4 photos): Sampling of crocuses popping up all over Cambridge.





Below: The buds in the trees foretell leafing out in April.


Below: After 4 days of warm weather, the yellow forsythia blooms are showing. We call this lot the "forest." In the city, even a 1/2 acre that is not developed is like a 100-acre forest to us urbanites.


Below: The warm weather brings every one out from their winter hibernation. Left: The first day of spring and temperature is in the 70s (over 20 deg C) and the banks of the Charles are littered with sunbathers. Note the leafless trees. Right: Another sign of spring: music in the park! On my lunch stroll through Boston's Public Garden, a jazz trio is playing.

Below: On a warm day in March brings out a couple of rowers (see lower left) on the Charles River where Harvard University lines both banks.

Below: A warm last day of winter and I'm riding my bike home from work when I stopped along the Charles River Esplanade to get a backlit photograph of a footbridge. (My favorite picture of this footbridge is bathed in the pink light of sunset -- see my post "Sunset Along the Charles River")

Below: I came home late to find my jonquils blooming. Here is a flash lit night photo of them.