The First Day of Spring

The beds are made, the dishes are washed, the bathroom is clean, the washing is in the machine and the garden is watered... and it is only 08:55 now. So much energy, so much enthusiasm... could it be blamed on Spring Fever.


In South Africa the first day of September is seen as officially the first day of Spring and since my early childhood it is a day I look forward to. In school we would all take flowers to school and we would wear spring-coloured dresses instead of school uniforms. In primary school we would celebrate with a picnic and everybody would be happy. Even today, many, many years later, this day holds a feeling of expectation... something new is going to happen!


I love Spring. I love the way nature awakens after its winter sleep. I love the new buds on plants, the blossoms on fruit trees, the new shoots of grass in the veldt. My father once, after a rain shower, walked with me in the veldt and at one point stopped and told me to keep quiet and just listen. He told me if I keep dead still and absolutely quiet, I would hear the grass grow... and I did! It was a rusling sound with tiny snaps and crackles mixed in. Only many years later did I realise that it was probably insects and other small animals moving around that I heard , but on that day, it was a pure wonderment to listen to the grass growing.


We live very close to nature in all its forms. A ten minute walk from my house in any direction and I find myself in the veldt. The behaviour of animals, birds and insects in Spring never cease to amaze me. Suddenly they all become very busy preparing for the Summer to come. A renaissance of nature and it always brings a smile to my face and the words "Gods in His Heaven and alls well on Earth" to my mind.


There has been no spring rains so far, and yet, plants take nourishment from the dew and sometimes I think from the very air, and start sprouting. In my part of the woods it is often said that the Bushvelt is "oh, so grateful". At the first whispering of Spring and with the slightest traces of moisture, it changes its dull and dreary winter cloak into the bright and vidid cloak of Joseph fame.


Even my garden rewarded me this morning with a surprise. The buds that have been present for days on my first Clivia to flower this season, were completely open this morning. How absolutely beautiful and what a promise of things to come.