Forcing the Season

How should I interpret that I really like forcing the spring season?  For many years, I have been forcing plant bulbs over the winter, and branches in February and March. It was something my mother did when I was a kid. Clearly, it is my way of getting a glimpse of Spring in the cold months.

Forcing plants is unnatural, right?  Is it some little power thing – you’re beating Nature (or God) at her own game? Maybe there’s some of that, but I find it so hopeful to see those blooms on a cold day when there might still snow falling outside.

a fragrantly forced hyacinth

It’s not like no one else is doing this as a commercial operation. I buy some bulbs in winter. Hyacinths are popular and I see them sold in glass containers to force them in water. You can also buy pre-potted tulips almost ready to open. You could do your own pots of bulbs and chill them for a make-believe winter, but the timing is tricky.

It’s too late to start on forcing bulbs for this year – unless some garden store in the area has done it for you. If you have forsythia bushes in your yard or nearby you can clip a few branches (with permission), clip some footlong tips and put them in water in February and March (any time before they are already blooming) and after about a week they will open. So easy.

Lots of forsythia forced indoors

There are other bushes and trees that are suitable for forcing. Ornamental trees and shrubs often set their flower buds during the previous growing season. The buds need to experience the cold which puts them into dormancy or they won’t open. They need at least 6 weeks of cold temperatures. The buds then usually wait for 2 to 3 weeks of moisture and warmth to come out of the dormancy.

That depends on where you live, but for much of the U.S.  February is usually enough dormancy time. I usually start on Valentine’s Day and clip a new batch every week until they start opening outside. It’s also the time when you can prune deciduous trees and large shrubs. So, while you’re out there in the cold with the pruners, you can use some of the cut branches for forcing.

I pick a mild day (definitely not freezing) and pick thin branches (less than a half inch) that have nice, fat flower buds. The flower buds are round and fat; leaf buds are smaller and pointed.

Forsythia bushes and pussy willows are two easy ones and are usually fairly plentiful. I love the yellow burst of forsythia in the house and then the full bushes when real Spring is here.

I try to cut some branches each weekend in February to keep blooms going. I might still have some trims I can make in early March, but then it’s close enough to real spring to stop.

I cut branches with my big vase with water in hand. 12 -36 inches is the range and I’ve heard that if you put them in a bucket of warm water and cut the bottom inch off the bottoms while they are underwater because that submerged cut is supposed to prevent air from drying the stem and promotes water intake. Some people use some floral preservative in fresh warm water and even cut again. I don’t get that fancy, but you can buy preservatives but they are not easy to make – lots of recipes online.

A little sunlight, warmth (not heat) and high humidity will speed up the bloom, but they are pretty forgiving and even in a cool, dark indoor setting you’ll eventually get some blooms.

Good Friday

The Rose Window at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, NJ cathedralbasilica.org by greeneydmantis, on Flickr

As a young Catholic boy, I didn’t understand the “Good” in “Good Friday.” It’s a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. How is that good?

The usage of  “good” is from the now obsolete sense of it meaning pious or holy. (Interestingly, the Old English version of “good” is gōd.) Today is also known as Holy Friday or Great Friday and is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday. It may, but usually does not, coincide with the Jewish observance of Passover. (I wrote more about this in an earlier post.)

The Good Friday I remember most vividly was when I was ten years old. I had to go to a service on that day after school. It was a cold, rainy day. I was bored with the service (in that time, much of it was in Latin) but at about midway through the service thunder and lighting started outside. The lightning lit up the deep colors of the large stained glass window behind the altar.  Jesus on the cross lit up. The heavens boomed. It was dramatic, like a movie. It seemed like more than a coincidence to me. I paid attention.

The Catholic Church – and my mom – treated Good Friday as a fast day. There is no celebration of Mass between the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday evening and the Easter Vigil, and no celebration of the Eucharist (Communion). During this period crosses, candlesticks, and altar cloths are removed from the altar which remains completely bare. They emptied the holy water fonts in preparation for the blessing of the water at the Easter Vigil. Traditionally, no bells are rung on Good Friday or Holy Saturday until the Easter Vigil. The vestments used by the priests on Good Friday were black back then.

It’s probably not a fair criticism, but going to church as a kid was never well staged for me. I liked the ritual but I wanted better lighting and better speakers and speeches. I often occupied myself by reading the book of Gospels during mass and trying to find some poetry in the hymnal. Eventually, I started bringing novels to church. I have a strong memory of reading The Grapes of Wrath in church and it seemed so much more relevant than what was going on around me. That novel has many Bible references and the main metaphor, the “grapes of wrath,” is a reference to Revelations and not a really upbeat message. “The cup of iniquity is full, the grapes of wrath are ripe, and now God crushes them in awesome judgment. Those who have rejected His grace feel the terror of His wrath.”

Historians who look at the details of the Canonical gospels say the Crucifixion of Jesus was most probably on a Friday (John 19:42). They estimate the year of Good Friday as AD 33. It is AD 34 according to Isaac Newton who used the differences between the Biblical and Julian calendars and the crescent of the Moon to make a calculation. Another astronomical approach is based on a lunar Crucifixion darkness and eclipse model (Apostle Peter’s has a reference to a “moon of blood” in Acts 2:20) which points to Friday, 3 April AD 33.

Banking Some Daylight for the Future

It is time once again for the U.S. to “spring forward” an hour for daylight saving time (DST) – unless you live in Hawaii, Arizona, the Midway Islands or Wake Island, where they do not play this game.

Tonight at bedtime, people push the hour hand forward, losing an hour, but with the supposed benefit that tomorrow’s sunset will be an hour later and that we are “banking” those hours for future dark days.

Do we still need Daylight Saving Time? (By the way, it is “saving”, not the plural, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.) Benjamin Franklin sometimes gets the credit for the idea of DST saving time. In Britain and Germany, they began using the concept in World War I to conserve energy. The U.S. used it briefly during the war, but it didn’t become widely accepted. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 set that clocks should be set forward on the last Sunday in April and set back on the last Sunday in October, but Congress has changed that several times to add more daylight saving to the calendar.  This year, daylight saving time begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November.

TimeandDate.com says that about 75 countries and territories observe daylight saving time and 164 have no time change. So, not everyone is on board.

The supposed plusses of DST:
– more time in the day for exercise and socialization = happier people
– increased visibility = decreased traffic accidents
– energy savings = less time that we use lights and other devices
– more time for tourism, shopping etc. = boost to the economy

Are you feeling the benefits? The “spring ahead” idea appeals to me because I feel a kind of resurgence – as does the nature around me in Paradelle – when spring arrives. I appreciate more daylight for me to be outside working in the garden or walking in the woods.

I always set the clock ahead at dinner time when I have settled into the house. (I would never recommend doing it the morning after.) so that I have at least six additional hours to adapt to the time change. I have never experienced the disorientation that some people report after the time changes during the year.

Considering Spring on February Second

A badger emerging from its den

It is February again and some people, in some places in the Northern Hemisphere, mark this as a time when some animals emerge from their winter dens. These events were viewed as omens that would predict the season ahead. In some European countries, watching the behavior of animals (badgers in particular) on February 2 to see if they emerged or returned to their dens predicted the coming of spring. It was believed that animals had a far more acute sense of the weather. Many people still believe that. If that badger emerged but decided to return to its den, it meant that there was still a long winter ahead.

Americans are probably more familiar with the holiday created by German immigrants in Pennsylvania. They didn’t find many badgers in Pennsylvania but there were a lot of groundhogs. Groundhog Day goes back to the mid-1800s. Though today it has become highly commercialized, the original idea was to continue the Candlemas Day tradition of watching a denning animal emerge from its winter quarters. In what I always thought to be reverse logic, if it is sunny and it sees its shadow and goes back in, it is another six weeks of winter rest. If the animal emerges on a cloudy day with no shadow, it will remain out and the rest of winter weather will be moderate.

There are other early February special days. Today is a “cross-quarter” day in the solar calendar. That means it falls exactly between a solstice and an equinox, and so we are halfway there in turning the wheel of the year. This is the ancient Celtic holiday of Imbolc. It honored Brigid, goddess of fire, poetry, healing, and childbirth. This was the day that she brought the healing power of the sun back to the world. Imbolc comes from the Old Irish imbolg, meaning “in the belly.”  It was the time when ewes became pregnant to deliver spring lambs.

As with many pagan holidays, February 2 became a Christian holiday called Candlemas Day which marked the presentation of Jesus at the Temple 40 days after Christmas and is marked by the blessing of candles. The day before, February 1, is Saint Brigid’s feast day.

Saint Brigid’s cross

According to an old Candlemas verse that seems to agree with the groundhog tradition:
If Candlemas day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another flight.
But if Candlemas day bring clouds and rain,
Winter is gone and won’t come again.

How was the weather in your neighborhood today? More winter or an early spring?

Christmas, Epiphany and the Zodiac

Christmas, December 25th, was once the time for receiving spiritual gifts. The Epiphany was the day for exchanging material gifts.

In Western Christianity, the Epiphany commemorates the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child, and thus Jesus Christ’s physical manifestation to the Gentiles. It is sometimes called Three Kings’ Day, or as Little Christmas.

Mosaic pavement of a 6th-century synagogue at Beit Alpha, Jezreel Valley, northern Israel. It was discovered in 1928. Signs of the zodiac surround the central chariot of the Sun (a Greek motif), while the corners depict the 4 “turning points” (“tekufot”) of the year, solstices and equinoxes, each named for the month in which it occurs. 
Image: Wikimedia

The Twelve Days of Christmas begin on December 26th. Each of the twelve days that follow Christmas corresponds to a sign of the zodiac. So, Aries is on the 26th, Taurus on the 27th, and so on. My sign is Libra which fall on January first. That’s a good day for new things. The twelfth day ends the ritual and is the Epiphany on January 6th.

In astrology, the belief is that you can foresee the coming year by observing carefully on these twelve days things like dreams, omens, and signs. The 12 days are believed to be the year in miniature.

I am not a believer in astrology, but in November I came across a horoscope for my birthdate that made two fairly specific predictions. Both “came to be” though one was off by a day. It didn’t make me a believer, but it did make me pay attention to what was happening to me – and I always appreciate any thing or any person who helps me be more aware and mindful.

“Epiphany” comes from Greek, meaning to manifest.  Of course, an epiphany is also the sudden realization or comprehension of the (larger) essence or meaning of something. The term is used in either a philosophical or literal sense to signify that the claimant has “found the last piece of the puzzle and now sees the whole picture,” or has new information or experience, often insignificant by itself, that illuminates a deeper or numinous foundational frame of reference.

I am going to pay attention to those 12 days. Let’s see if I have any epiphany before the Epiphany.

Did You Use Some of Your Saved Daylight?

This old poster has the odd slogan “Get your hoe ready!”
Want to take a guess at why that was part of DST?

Ah, that seasonal time interruption, Daylight Saving Time (DST), is upon us. This controversial to some people practice of changing our clocks (typically by one hour) forward late winter or spring (“spring forward”), and to set clocks back by one hour in the fall (“fall back”). The latter, which occurs today, is the return to standard time. As a result, there is one 23-hour day in early spring and one 25-hour day in the middle of autumn.

Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 am here in Paradelle tomorrow, November 5, 2023. Most people change their clocks before they head to bed but some people like to get up and then turn back time an hour and use some of that “saved time” from summer.

Modern DST was first proposed in 1895 by George Vernon Hudson and many countries have used it since then with varying details. It is DST in the United States, Canada, and Australia and summer time in the United Kingdom, European Union, and other places.

An early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, which back in the day was the primary use of electricity. Nowadays, we have many more electrical appliances and devices such as heating and cooling units that use the bulk of our power.

The supposed effects on health are not definitive. DST (the spring forward change) might provide more afternoon sunlight for outdoor exercise and might alter sunlight exposure which might trigger vitamin D synthesis in the skin, but overexposure can also lead to skin cancer.

There are a lot of “mights” in these effects. For example, DST might help in depression by causing individuals to rise earlier or get more sunlight. Sunlight does have a strong effecton seasonal affective disorder (SAD) so sufferers may find relief in summer. Of course that would mean that SAD would get worse with our fall back change. But SAD is more likely affected by how much an individual gets outside at any time of the year. If you live in the north, like in paradelle, almost everyone goes out in the sunlight more in summer than in winter and exposes more skin to he sunlight in summer.

Clock shifts do disrupt sleep but that effect should be short-term. I have never noticed a change when we do the two time shifts. But I have read that studies show for some people that seasonal adaptation of the circadian rhythm can be severe and last for weeks.