Ladybug Love

I saw a ladybug this week. It was walking around on the bathroom floor, which surprised me. I saw the tiny speck but knew immediately what it was. Ladybugs have a distinctive shape and shine. We were only two days into March, but I was thrilled when I knelt down to confirm my suspicion and pick it up. I moved it to the plants in my bedroom. They don’t have aphids, but I figured that the little bug had a better chance of finding food there than on the bathroom floor.

I saw two ants, too. Two ants have been surveying my kitchen for the last couple of weeks. Scouts, I assume, out surveying the possibilities of the outside world.

If you are bug-phobic, you probably don’t understand my delight. Maybe you’re feeling twitchy, thinking: this is why I pay a pest control service…

Understood.

To be clear, if there were dozens or hundreds of ants — or ladybugs — it would be a different situation. I still would not pay for poison in my house, but I would need to come up with a better resolution.

But this was not an infestation; this was a visitation.

I met these three because of what they were: the first signs of spring. We still have plenty of snow around but from whatever tiny spaces these insects inhabited the last months, they emerged.

Last week, I caught the first call of the red-wing blackbirds. I only heard a couple but then yesterday, it sounds like dozens out in the marsh.

Many people have their own: I-know-it’s-spring-when… moments.

First day above 50 degrees

First snowdrop or crocus

First robin

First Spring Training game

Wiccans and Pagans celebrate Imbolc, which is celebrated February 1-2. It signals the first moment of life within the earth. The word Imbolc comes from the Celtic meaning: in the belly. It signals the first life beginning, deep in the soil. It happens not in March or April, but February. When I first heard about it, I loved it. I particularly loved the idea of being deep in winter, yet the stirrings of life begin.

It’s a quiet holiday, an inward one. It is the perfect time for reflection which of course, many gardeners do when we spend the time planning for our next growing season.

As I write this, it from my perspective as someone who lives in New England where this year, we had a winter which in the words of a gardener friend mine “felt like a real winter.” Multiple snowstorms meant we’ve had snow cover for the last several weeks. Gardeners like this kind of weather; it’s called “poor man’s manure.” A snow cover acts like an insulating blanket which is better than an open winter with fluctuating temperatures. In a very cold winter, freezing temperatures can help kill overwintering pests and diseases.

But it’s hard on people. When these small moments occur, they remind us that the seasons kept their promise to change. We are moving from the deepest darkest time of the year to more warmth and light.

One of my favorite books is a lesser-known John Steinbeck travelogue: Travels With Charley. Written in 1962, it’s an account of a trip he took around the country in a camper with his poodle, Charley. It’s one of those books that I reread every five or ten years. There is a lot of wisdom in it, and though his account is widely understood to be fictionalized, the writing and observations stand up. He began his trip on Long Island and went up through New England, writing about the fiery colors of fall, as it got increasingly colder. At one point he says: “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”

True words.

We’ve had a hard winter in so many ways. This week our temps may wander up to the 60s for a couple of days which means I might see my sidewalk again.

Whatever your harbinger of spring is, I hope you encounter it. I hope you have your own tiny piece of joy and hope in warmer days to come.

Peace