Signs of Spring

When my grandchildren were small, I used to take them out for 'signs of spring' walks.   These walks would occur when it was yet too cold to believe in spring, but when you really needed a boost from the less aesthetic aspects of winter.  It required us all to look very sharply, very closely, because the signs were rare.  But the kids--5 and 6 year olds--were as capable of seeing the signs as I was once they got the knack, so we could make of it something of a contest.  The real point, of course, was to cue them in to how the seasons flow into one another, and how that is the world we live in which we do not make or control.

The grandchildren are now too old to go on those walks with me, although more to the point, they're not anywhere close enough around to do it.  They might still like it if they were here.  But suffice to say that we didn't do those walks in mid-January.  It would be more like the end of February.

This afternoon, however, I did a little solitary walk around the yard and found signs abundant and very easy to see.  But awfully puzzling.  The tulips are up about 3 inches: Do I remove the leaves so the slugs don't eat their tips?  If I do, will the deer then come and eat them up because of their being so visible?  Daffs and tulips up everywhere, but no sign of the normally February-blooming crocus.  Is there any reason that the lupine are already putting up new leaves and that the slugs are already eating them?  Why are there quite large Queen Anne's lace plants growing everywhere?  Does foxglove normally come up so fully this early?  And what about all those leafing-out hydrangeas?

We had a very cold spell for about a week in December that may well have done in several bushes, but the temperatures since then have been much warmer than usual for January.  I'm confused.  I'm not at all sure whether I'm seeing signs of spring or signs of global warming or signs of La Nina or what.  Whatever it is, I am definitely not in control.