The Color of April

 The color of April is brown. It's a dusty brown, the tan of sand on the roadway, the brown of dry, dead leaves in the woods. Grass pressed down by the snow lies flat. Naked tree trunks and branches reach up into a sky that's never really clear. Even a sunny day is dulled by April's distinctive haze.

Fire danger is high when the snow is gone, because none of the vegetation has juiced up yet, while residual moisture in the dead straw can actually start a fire from the heat of fermentation. Light rain makes it worse.

The color of April arrived early this year, because of the drought. Wolfeboro supposedly recorded 80 inches of snow, but inches of snow do not reflect an absolute value of actual water. Most of the snowfalls after early December measured maybe four to eight inches, but packed down to one. The winter was cold and mostly dry. Getting through the cold and darkness feels good, but it feels less like emerging from the ice age when the snow was barely ever there.

March is usually the brightest month, as strong sun shines down through a leafless canopy onto the white snow surface. Blue skies are really blue. Once the snow is gone, the dusty residue of salted and sanded roads, combined with the dust and sand of the glacial soil seem to sublimate into the atmosphere. The air you look through may be clear, but the sky itself looks like it needs spring cleaning.

April Fool's Day usually brings us a practical joke from the weather. It may not be on the exact day, but a snowstorm at the beginning of April is common. Two or three systems are forming up now to usher in the month. A couple of years ago, it was a devastating dump of wet cement that did worse damage at lower elevations than either of the last two catastrophic ice storms. In other years, the April prank just includes snow in a wet mix of rain, freezing rain, and sleet.

On a day of heavy clouds and cold rain, April and November are hard to tell apart, until the fringe of buds and tree flowers becomes obvious later in the month.

Despite what might seem like a dismal aspect, the rides during this part of the season bring joyous anticipation of brighter, warmer days full of life. A dry winter robs us not only of needed water, but of the pleasure of meltwater streams glistening as the land greens up. Frogs start calling. Turtles bask. The hawks return. Every pedal stroke brings you closer to that.