mwvhistoryblogdraft

a Are you ready with your "pie timber" for these upcoming holidays tomorrow? z

Spring began today (March 20, 2025) at 5:01 am EDT in the Northern Hemisphere, marking the spring equinox, when day and night are nearly equal in length.  The illuminated manuscript featuring March from between 1412 - 1440 depicts some of the French farming practices from that time.  In the foreground you can see plowing the fields with oxen. Beyond that they are pruning the vineyards and behind that to the left they are caring for sheep.  At the top are the constellations, zodiac and image of Apollo with the sun. Phebus is another name for the sun god and he is featured in a poem by Thomas Randall of Eaton, NH here  about the birth of spring and the death of winter.  The poet Donald Hall captured a less optimistic scenario in his poem about maple syrup here .  While astronomical spring began today, meteorological spring began on March 1.  March is a time of variable weather and authors and poets had words to say about that too.  One of my favorit...