MARCH

THE THIRD MONTH • 2021 MARCH HATH 31 DAYS

Now feel the gentle zephyrs, / Warmth throughout they bring. Carrying a familiar message, / Again the taste of spring. –Donald Webber

Farmer's Calendar

All around the bend in the river road, cars are pulled over to the side and on the bridge people have gathered. They come and go all day. They're gawking at the ice. The breaking up of the ice down the river is winter's last big show, a view of the underside of winter, the engine room, the groaning, grinding machinery.

The river is no more than 150 feet across where it makes a bend, following which the channel widens out some. There the ice, floating down from upriver, is apt to get stuck. A dam of ice begins to rise. More ice comes down the river, meets the dam, tries to push through it, fails, tries to climb over it, fails. The dam grows deeper, higher. The ice blocks are 4, 5 feet thick, gray or green, sometimes pale blue like the spring sky. The weight of the ice sheets is unimaginable, and yet they are flung up at all angles on the dam. They are shot out to the sides of the channel, where they scour the riverbanks and mow down good-size trees. As big as the ice blocks are, what is pushing them is bigger. They will go where they are pointed, and there is not too much that can stop them. The people watch silently, from a safe distance.

Listen to the Farmer's Calendar at Almanac.com/Podcast.