Excitement over winter's end can bring summertime angst

Out & About, by Eowyn LeMay Ivey

The days are stretching out longer and longer on the horizon, snow is giving way to green and the sandhill cranes are doing their long-legged dance in my friend's potato fields.

It is here.

Part of me is positively giddy that spring has finally decided to bless us with its presence, but somewhere deeper I feel the panic set in. The timer has been set. I have just 140 days before the snow flies.

That may sound like more weekends than I should know what to do with, but I know better. In no time at all, summer solstice will have come and gone and winter's curtain will slowly close around me.

I know I'm not alone in my frantic desire to enjoy absolutely every minute of daylight and warmth.

"It's almost May and I haven't gone on a single camping trip," one of my mom's friends told her this spring.

We all know how it works. One day the ice is barely receding, the next the leaves are falling from the trees. When summer is flying by, we stay up until after midnight to fling lures after silver salmon or weed the garden, trying to squeeze as much as we can into every hour.

The seasons, however, have a movement of their own.

First the trout surface, then kings move in, next the creeks are swimming with silvers and reds and, before we know it we are getting one last stab at the trout. At the same time, there's spring bear hunting, early autumn caribou hunting, if you're lucky, and then the mad dash to get a moose for the freezer before winter. Some of us try to fit in a goat or sheep hunt along the way as well.

In our spare time, we strive to plant gardens, pick berries, hunt for fossils, float rivers, swim in lakes, hike mountain trails, barbecue in our backyard, gather summer flowers, entertain visiting relatives …

We dig in our heels, resisting the passing of each day, but the land itself pulls us toward autumn against our will even as we try to cram in one more weekend hike, one more day of blueberries.

Knowing the end is inevitable, we force the beginning to come a little sooner. The earlier we get in our first excursion, we reason, the longer our summer.

The other day on a drive up the Glenn Highway I saw a family camped on the banks of Long Lake, their boulder-encircled fire reflected in the sliver of open water along the shore. Ice still covered most of the lake and the children were bundled up in winter coats, but they tossed rocks into the water like it was a sunny July day.

I should have been happy for them. Instead I felt a twinge of bitter jealousy. They were already starting their summer, ice or no ice, and I hadn't even dug my backpack out of winter storage.

I know what I have to do -- stop mourning the passing of summer before it even begins. It's time to plunge in and not look back until autumn's first frost comes.

Eowyn LeMay Ivey covers outdoors and education for the Frontiersman.