You know that feeling, when bird songs fill the dawn of morning, when the air is actually warmish for the first time, when the bare brown earth disappears under bows and flows of freshly emerging green growth, when sunshine sweetens your smile, and sweat actually beads on your skin.
Spring drew on … and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps. – Charlotte Brontë
You remember those days in school when studies slackened because you were skipping class to be outside somewhere, anywhere, absorbing the fragrances and hormonal therapy of spring. Or was that just me?
It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want—oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! -- Mark Twain
Well, that’s how it was for Kath and me, after enduring last week’s weather full of cold and rain, rain, rain, and then this day arises, promising kind-of-blue skies and slightly warmer air. The sun peaked out enough to say “come play with me,” and we joined up with him on a hike at Dugualla.
In springtime, love is carried on the breeze. Watch out for flying passion and kisses whizzing by your head. -- Emma Racine Defleur
Yes, there was still mud the entire three miles of trail. But everywhere, green filled the sidelines, filled the treetops, filled the woodlands and nostrils and hopes and dreams. Life bloomed and blossomed as if a door had been opened and floods of flowers poured out. Songbirds filled the skies with unchained melodies – grosbeaks, warblers, sparrows, nuthatches, chickadees, finches and robins, one handing the song over to another as we walked along. They know what spring means!
The first real day of spring is like the first time a boy holds your hand. A flood of skin-tingling warmth consumes you, and everything shines with a fresh, colorful glow, making you forget that anything as cold and harsh as winter ever existed. – Richelle Goodrich
Trees lay tangled on the forest floor from the storms of winter. It became a game of how to get over, under, or around them. But they lay amid forests of newly budded fellow trees, springing green and glowing brightly.
It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what. -- John Galsworthy
Fragrances filled our noses: skunk cabbage, elderberry, nettles, firs, the mud of low tide, the catkins of alders and blossoms of maples. Bees buzzed on huckleberry flowers, hummers hummed on salmonberry, even a mosquito whined and then dined on my hand.
Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring? -- Neltje Blanchan
Hardly a sound of civilization interrupted our bucolic wanderings. Dropping down to the beach we found low tide, Mt. Erie rising above shimmering water, seaweed glistening, and sand between our toes. Climbing back up from the beach, panting a little and sweating a little too, gave us the satisfaction of knowing we were alive, close to the wild heart of new life, life emerging and exploding and embracing the power of spring. Smiles on the faces of hikers, bikers, and horse riders reflected the sparkle we enjoyed as the miles flew by.
Happiness? The color of it must be spring green. – Frances Mayes
Our shoes and Murphy’s belly were laden with the smell and substance of wet dirt as we rounded the last bend and headed back to our car.
In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. -- Margaret Atwood
We did. And sunshine.
jack
Directions: On Highway 20 north of Oak Harbor, take Sleeper Road east to the end of the road. Parking for about 15 cars now.
By bus: There is no bus service on Sleeper Road.
By bike: Sleeper Road is hilly but quiet.
Mobility: There is a gate with a rough trail to get around it. The trails at Dugualla are hilly, a mixture of gravel and dirt, and mostly narrow once you get past the first half mile. Fallen trees are a jungle gym in a few places.
Jack Hartt worked in Washington State Parks for 40 years and was manager of Deception Pass State Park for his last 14. Now retired, he's involved with Skagit Land Trust, Anacortes Community Forest Lands and Transition Fidalgo.