The rush toward summer

This is excerpted from the writings of Hal Borland, who penned a nature column in the New York Times for years.

The urgency is upon all of us and every growing thing around us. Daylight now approaches fifteen hours, but still there isn't enough time to height="147" width="131" do, to see, to participate as we would. The farmer hurries her planting to be ready for the hay crop swiftly maturing. The suburbanite mows his lawn and wages war with the dandelions and the crabgrass, hoping for an idle weekend or a free evening. The gardener is caught between spring bulbs and summer annuals, between peas and corn and beans and the annual crop of weeds.

Meanwhile, the trees spread their green canopy, hurry their blossoms to maturity and seedling, and the chlorophyll works overtime, feeding new shoots and old stems. Brooksides, purple with violets last week, begin to flush with wild geraniums. Meadows where bluets were like frost two weeks ago are freckled with buttercups. Cool woodland margins that have had their succession of hepatica, bloodroot, anemones, wild ginger and trilliums, now are peopled with Jack-in-the-pulpits.

Sunrise comes early, with a chorus of bird song, and dark comes late. But the days are too short for the season's demands, too short to leave time for one to stand and look and feel and be part of this surging rush toward June.

Everything seems to be happening at once. Yesterday it was April and tomorrow it will be summer.

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