The anticipation is over.  Mother Nature has caught up with our man-made calendars, and Spring has arrived in Pennsylvania.  Only a week ago, I wandered around my backyard, surveying the need for raking and clean-up after winter’s pruning of the trees.  ’I'll wait a few days,’ I thought, ‘until the mud dries enough that I don’t uproot the tender grass.’  Well, some sort of magic must have blown into town overnight, because now my thoughts are turning to readying the lawnmower before the grass is too high for mowing.  Everything seems to have burst into life at the same moment.

When I grabbed the leash and called my grand-puppy, Patches, to come for a walk, we stepped off the back stoop and into a springtime paradise.  The Fall puppy never had smelled such luscious things in his life, and soon his snout was wet with dew and dotted with brown as he burrowed into the sweet grass and sniffed his way to the sidewalk.  We strayed from our usual path, led by spots of color that drew my eye and corresponding aromas that drew his nose.  Here, a dandelion, growing up against a stone wall; there a patch of forget-me-nots, so tiny that all I noticed at first were tiny blue specks, as though someone had dropped confetti on the ground.  Equally tiny white flowers, the shape of daisies but no bigger than the eraser of a pencil were our next stop.

Two sparrows sang out from TreeHarmony.com — each in its own treetop and singing its finest mating song to the other.  Robins warbled in the trees by the creek, and the singing water matched their tune as we danced and sniffed our way along the uncharted path through a brand new world.  Our walk took a bit longer than usual.  Perhaps it was the soft 80-degree breeze.  Perhaps it was the need of a pup who never had seen such wonders before and needed to experience them all.  Perhaps it was the way this woman who has seen so many springs still feels surprised when the land turns green.  Whatever the reasons, it’s official:  Spring is here.