Melting Snow

         This is the time of year when I start looking for signs of green sprouts poking up… But right now there’s still over a foot of snow over most of the beds where my bulbs have been sleeping, so I won’t be seeing them soon.  Still, the snow is melting bit by bit, the sugar maples are filling their sap buckets, and I’m ready to celebrate the not-quite-spring of this sometimes infuriating season.

        I start with this detailed wood engraving by Thomas Willoughby Nason (USA, 1889-1971), which is about what things look like around here: still grey, still covered in snow, except that the roofs and roads are mostly clear.

        The bright colors of the second piece are still to come; there’s certainly no sign of green grass yet.  Nevertheless, the days are getting longer, sure enough, and there’s plenty of meltwater around.  This piece comes from a book of acrostics by Steven Schnur with water-colored linoleum block prints by Leslie Evans.

        I don’t know how long it will be until it really starts feeling like spring around here, or when I’ll see my first green daffodil spears nosing up through last year’s matted leaves.  It could be a week or three…  But either way I won’t be marking the moment in this blog because I will once again be dedicating the second half of March and the whole of April to the annual April A to Z Blog Challenge.  Tune in next week when I reveal my theme for 2026!

      The place where I will be revelling in signs of spring is my Instagram, so feel free to join me there.  For a few more early spring block prints, you can revisit Spring Forward with Cheffetz and Early Spring.  And (if you’re in the northern hemisphere, anyway) keep your eyes sharp for any evidence of returning spring.  It can't be too much longer now! 

[Pictures: Melting Snow, wood engraving by Thomas Willoughby Nason, 1941 (Image from Amon Carter Museum of American Art);

THAW, hand-colored linoleum block print by Leslie Evans from WINTER: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur, 2002.]