This article by Ray Spitzenberger first appeared in IMAGES for March 28, 2019, East Bernard Express, East Bernard, Texas.
Spring officially began six days ago, on March 20; and we have had, at least in our part of Texas, some truly beautiful cool, clear, sunny Spring-like days. Here anyway. We didn’t get the large hail that battered McKinney, nor the fumes and black smoke pouring out of a Deer Park industrial facility. Hopefully, today, those places, too, are enjoying the beauty of Texas in the Spring. Today is an absolutely breathtakingly resplendent Spring day!
While tiny wildflowers were poking their heads up between blades of grass in our very green lawn, various friends posted on Facebook breathtaking pictures of bluebonnets and red blankets already covering the hillsides in some places in Texas. One of the most spectacular posts was the one showing huge fields of lavender blooming on the hillsides in Fredericksburg.
To our delight, several patches of bluebonnets are blooming their beautiful heads off, encircling Grandpa’s old plow, on the west side of our house!
A resident wren-couple began their annual task of nest-building on the beams of our patio roof. I am told by bird-lovers that our Texas wrens mate for life, stay on the same property for life, and each Spring build four or five nests so that the female will have a choice as to which one she will hatch her babies in. The male helps the female build the nests. These two wrens continued their nest-making even while my wife and I sat on the patio only two feet from them.
As we were enjoying these indications of Spring, I could not refrain from wanting to sing that old song we learned in Dime Box Rural School, “Have you ever been to Texas in the Spring, where the flowers bloom and birds are on the wing.” I sang it in my heart, because I didn’t wish to annoy my wife by singing it out loud (if you’ve ever heard me sing, you understand why).
Over the years, I have seen and heard slightly different versions of this song, but the basic content of the lyrics is always the same. The song continues with, “Where bluebonnets wave in air, and there’s friendship everywhere, While busy bees are humming and the banjos are a-strumming?” We do have bluebonnets waving in the cool breeze this morning, but there are no bees buzzing around our patio, and I haven’t heard a banjo in years. My wife did play the piano a while yesterday (which delights me more than a banjo). You’d think that whoever wrote the song would know you’re more likely to hear a guitar in Texas than a banjo.
The wildflowers garnishing our backyard lawn look a lot like those in our yard at Easter when I was a child. Our Wendish custom was to build Easter egg nests out of the grass and wild plants from the yard, and then decorate the nests. My mother, aunts, and grandmother told my brother and me that if we adorned our nests with wild flowers, the Easter Bunny would leave chocolate rabbits and candy eggs. You can just know how vigorously and enthusiastically we lined those nests with flowers! Happy childhood, Springtime memories!
So far, no pink primroses or wine cups have sprung up in our yard, but we never have as many of those as we used to have in Dime Box. In the old days, our back pasture was literally covered with primroses (we called them “buttercups”). Their appearance was a sure sign of Spring in Texas, — “Where the flowers bloom.” Some years we had a profusion of bluebonnets in Lee County, and some years we didn’t. I guess it depended on the way nature distributed the seeds, because in those days, nobody PLANTED wildflower seeds; they just came up on their own. This week, bluebonnets are coming up on their own along country roads in East Bernard, — as the song says, “Where bluebonnets wave in air, and there’s friendship everywhere.”
It seems that most folks are friendlier, happier, and livelier in the Spring than any other time of year. Here in our town, East Bernarders are ALWAYS friendly, cordially saying, “Yak se mas!” to everyone with a smile on their face, — but even more so when it’s Spring and the flowers bloom and birds are on the wing!
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Ray Spitzenberger is a retired teacher and pastor, and author of a book, IT MUST BE THE NOODLES.