grass

 Once again the days lengthen toward my birthday in mid February.  That point marks two months into the new season, and the time when it becomes obvious to me that the sun is once again winning the annual battle with dark.

The other thing I watch for is grass.  Often as early as February I can see little spears of grass showing a hopeful green in the pastures where we feed the market cattle.  Often these will be poking up through the snow, a real symbol of bravery in a hostile world!

These pastures have been in perennial grasses and legumes now for twenty five years.  But what passes for a house lawn here has grown pretty much undisturbed for nearly seventy years, in my knowledge, maybe longer.  In the lawn I do not see this early poking up of new life.  The lawn is mowed, while the pasture is grazed.  Is it the cattle?

I need to explore the hay fields, which are two or three year rotations, to find out if early grass shows there.  But whatever, it is evident that no corn or soybeans or other annuals are currently greening up anywhere in Minnesota.  The early greening of perennials has to do with the carbon cycle and thus is critical to our efforts to get some of the carbon back out of the air and into the soil where it belongs.  We have much to learn.