March

The day could not have been more typically March as I angled across the pasture, climbed the fence and headed for the hay field where the water was standing.  A strong cold wind blew, clouds mostly covered the sky with just a few peeks of sun.  And once again I was cheered by the scene under my feet.  In both the pastures and the hay field, green was showing.  Those clover and, in the hay field, alfalfa plants were a bright intense green nestled as they were in beds of just greening grass with water puddles and leftover snow drifts scattered about.
Unless we go to look, we don't see this.  From the edge the fields still look winter dead.  They are not.  And I wonder if they really are in winter, at least when it comes to perennial plants.
There are differences.  You are apt to get mud on your feet in the hay, where you will not most areas in the pasture.  This is because the roots in the pasture are very much more developed; consequently you are walking on plant material left over from last year.  There is little in the way of bare ground.  This is usually not true in the hay seeding, where the roots, though perennial, have typically not had as many seasons to develop.
What always startles me about this is that the first parts of the pasture sward to go dormant in the fall, after the first hard frost, are also the first plants to show a vibrant green in the spring.  Legumes evidently operate in a somewhat different season than the grasses that are just now losing their dusty green aspect and clothing themselves in spring green.