Green gold makes a hard currency From Danube Delta to Arctic Ocean Mirages and Croakings

Mirages and Croakings

Air

Meteorologically, spring has sprung when the daily mean temperature stays permanently above the freezing point. The advancing climate change makes reckoning difficult as it appear that the pluses outdo the minuses on the Celsius scale even in the winter.

The various strata of the atmosphere project on to the horizon a mirage that turns the image upside down. But then spring is nothing but a mirage, a miracle.

Even the smells arrive through presentiments. The smell of the fertile soil pushing out from under the snow is preceded by an indescribable stirring in the air. The breeze is gentle, there's love in the air. The butterflies come out to warm themselves in the first spring sun.

Earth

The small snowless spot grows larger and is finally larger than the area covered by snow. The earth sheds its icy shackles and awakens the soil. Light green is the most beautiful and delicate spring colour. The enchantress Fata Morgana, mistress of metamorphosis, points her magic wand at the creation and - abracadabra.

The flora and fauna that have been hibernating for months awaken to a new life with a startle. The animals start their spring frolics on the ground free from winter. The squirrels chase each other, the black grouse chuckles. The cotton grass grows seed heads while the mire is still frozen over. A hepatica peeps out of a tussock.

The spring frost is deceptive although it lasts for only a couple of the early hours of the morning. It may bite to death a potato seedling or turn to ice a nightly wanderer of the sky intoxicated with the spring.
The first street cafes are being opened, with people rattling chairs and tables in the tender sun, the cold fingers pushing out of the sleeve of the winter coat bend to make a victory sign.
Head in the clouds, feet on the ground. The girl in the knee socks is skipping rope.

Water

The snow melts violently, the land is flooded. People are rowing a boat where you only recently walked in your plimsolls. Often there is only a small trickle that winds its way across the tarmac. The sparrow indulges in bathing. The snow caste of the shrew is full of water.

The man of the house heads for this spring's last bout of ice angling. When he's finished drilling a hole through the sludge, his boot slips through the thin ice and then the entire man. At home the woman of the house hangs the wet fishing overall to dry on the clothing line in the garden. With luck it may dry, the rays of the sun reach up to the clothing line.

The frogs are waking up in the bottom mud of ponds. The female lays her eggs in the water, the male fertilizes the spawn. The croaking is loud and clear. The tadpoles are born later.

Thirst grows, beer glasses get topped up in the street cafes.

Fire

The spring light is selfish and arrogant, pushing everywhere without bothering to ask for permission. The ball of fire blazing in the sky has wonderful consequences. It makes people rowdy or depressed, awakens the need to do the spring cleaning, organize communal sprucing up of shared gardens. The faces turn up towards the sky.

There's a fire inside and no bounds to love. The spring hormone gets harnessed to power one like an individual nuclear reactor.

The barbecue is carried out, the eager barbecue master burns the first sausages whose charred skin tastes better than ever.

The spark lights the fire of spring.

BY TARJA VÄSTILÄ
ILLUSTRATION BY FLEUR WILSON