The ice-bound brooks have at last burst their fetters, in the meadows by the little streams the stems of the willows are yellowing, and here and there the pussy willows, in their silver, furry coats, are bursting forth; the alders have sprouted, and from the ooze of the marshes the swamp-cabbages are pushing forth their sharp-pointed purple sprouts. While the honking geese, flock after flock, trail wedge-like in the early mists of the morning, across the gray skies. In the sedgy places where the flags are just sprouting the “peepers” at twilight begin their spring chorus, and with the advent of all these signs of advancing spring, we realise that the “backbone of winter” has fairly been broken, and the earth is preparing and waiting for April, with its beneficent showers to bring new life into all dormant buds and vegetation beneath the earth and to arouse them once more from their long winter’s lethargy.
138. Second stage of lance-like crystal
139. Lance-like form completed
140. Freak ice crystals
140 b. Group of ice crystals containing germs, “freaks” and one completed ice flower
“April cold with dropping rain