Reminiscing With Jo: Spring In Wisconsin

“I don’t know about you, but I am experiencing some major spring fever right about now. This winter has been brutal with all the snow then melting to ice. We are coming off the last couple years of Covid feeling like we are able to socialize and get out and enjoy things again. It is feeling like the weather is trying to squelch that opportunity. But that is winter, and we live in Wisconsin. The most beautiful part of living in Wisconsin, in my opinion, is the four seasons that we get to enjoy Of those four seasons, spring is my absolute favorite.

Spring starts with cold nights when the temperatures drop just enough to freeze the standing water that accumulated from the melting. It freezes the puddles to a crisp thin layer of ice that sits slightly above the street and as you step down it crackles and crunches with a sharp noise. That ice makes you listen to the silence that was there before and returns again, but this time you revel in it and look for the next icy fjord to occur. Eventually, the ice will disappear completely and we will have tiny patches of snow giving way to the dormant brown grass beginning its renewal to green.

The tulips, daffodils, and crocuses will be starting to sprout through the thawing ground. I don’t think that there are any better colors than those of the spring renewal. Soon, the city trucks will be sweeping clean the streets, the kids will start planning their summer vacations, and we will all be enjoying the rejuvenation and the newness that comes with the spring. Some of us will celebrate Easter and the reminder of Jesus’s promise of renewed life for us. We will start to see our neighbors working in their yards and planting their gardens. And we will feel the warmth that we have been waiting all winter for. Our rest is completed and our reward is on its way.”

Jo Hayes