<p>
	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Ice-on-Louies-200pxl.jpg" style="float: right; width: 200px; height: 150px; " />So far, spring has been bizarre.&nbsp; Three weeks ago, our biggest snowfall of the year graced us with quite possibly the wettest, fattest snow I&rsquo;ve seen outside of the Cascade Mountains.&nbsp; Then, two weeks ago, a warm front sent temperatures skyrocketing into the 80&rsquo;s, gave me a premature sunburn, and melted all our wet, fat snow.&nbsp; This weather hung around for close to two weeks, long enough to fool the aspens, maples, and cherries into budding.&nbsp; Long enough to fool the trailing arbutus, spring beauties, and crocus into flowering.&nbsp; Long enough to pull the sandhill cranes, red-winged blackbirds, and phoebes northward to begin singing.&nbsp; Long enough to start the peepers peeping and the wood frogs quacking.&nbsp; Long enough, so that when normal temperatures returned two days ago, I had to remind myself it was still March.</p>
<p>
	All that said, I don&rsquo;t know what to expect weather wise over the coming months.&nbsp; Our winter programs took place a few weeks ago with a landscape that only loosely resembled northern Michigan winter. &nbsp;I do, however, look forward to our spring programs and the three interns who will be joining us this May. &nbsp;Programs will adapt with the changing ecosystems.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s what resilient organisms do.</p>
<p>
	We are extremely excited to have Manistee Catholic&rsquo;s 7<sup>th</sup> grade class out in three weeks to conduct a two-day study of the Manistee River. This particular group of students will have attended Au Sable the previous year as 6<sup>th</sup> graders and participated in our winter study.&nbsp; It is always great to have the chance to work with students over consecutive years, as <a href="/k12programs/program_guide/">our curriculum is designed to do</a>, and we look forward to creating similar relationships with our other residential attendees.&nbsp; The <a href="/k12programs/program_and_event_calendar/">rest of our schedule</a> is filling up fast with day programs.</p>
<p>
	I sometimes read a poem by Mary Oliver to the interns early in the morning on the week of training.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s always appropriate, but in spring, her imagery matches the season.&nbsp; Embrace spring with us wherever you are:</p>
<p>
	-<em>Why I wake Early</em>-</p>
<p>
	Hello, sun in my face.<br />
	Hello, you who made the morning<br />
	and spread it over the fields<br />
	and into the faces of the tulips<br />
	and the nodding morning glories,<br />
	and into the windows of, even, the<br />
	miserable and the crotchety &ndash;</p>
<p>
	best preacher that ever was,<br />
	dear star, that just happens<br />
	to be where you are in the universe<br />
	to keep us from ever-darkness,<br />
	to ease us with warm touching,<br />
	to hold us in the great hands of light &ndash;<br />
	good morning, good morning, good morning.</p>
<p>
	Watch, now, how I start the day<br />
	in happiness, in kindness.</p>
