While the equinox is just the beginning of it, news media dutifully use that marker to proclaim that spring is finally here. Likewise, migratory birds slyly anticipate the snow’s disappearance and ice’s last hurrah. But we are, without a doubt, weather creatures and it can take that mighty engine a few weeks to catch up to our muddled notions.

Flowers are one of the more beautiful thermometers of when it is prudent to remove one’s outer garb: A lovely sunny day in the warming ambitions and it is time to expose what it is for which we yearn.

When we hear a “croak” nowadays we tend to think of frogs. The word however evolved from the Middle English crake (raven) and the Old Norse kraka (crow): twa corbies. When I see crocuses, I can’t help but be reminded of Robert Williams Wood’s delightful 1907 How to tell the Birds from the Flowers. You never hear the Crocus croak!