Familiar scents of spring start emerging in March 
Having grown up in the West Central Adirondacks, I had a firm understanding that the month of March was considered the middle of winter.
When I was a young boy, March was a special month for me.
I think what I loved most was the changing smell of the woods. With the longer days came more sunshine which warmed the woods.
Although there was still a few feet of snow on the ground and some nights temperatures dropped below zero, a noticeable thaw was taking place.
My dog Mutt and I ventured out on those March days snooping around the woods and hills surrounding Limekiln Lake.We could both sense the big thaw as the snow pack no longer held our weight.
The color of the snow seemed to take on a grayish cast and its surface was peppered with spruce tree bits.
Mutt and I trudged through some deep snow to find a thick patch of thirty foot tall spruce.
Here under the spruce trees the snow was beginning to recede—which signaled to me that the soft woods would soon be emitting their familiar spring aromas.
Mutt had her nose to the ground and circled around the patch of trees.
Deer droppings were everywhere in neat little piles and she examined every one of them as I looked for a good tree to climb.
I pulled my mittens off and tucked them safely into my boots.
I tugged on a lower branch of a good-sized spruce to see if it would possibly hold my weight.
I scrambled up about four or five branch heights before realizing that the smaller upper branches would not do the trick.
So I decided to stop where I was and sat down on two V-shaped limbs to closely survey the clump of trees.
I took in a deep breath and the smells of the forest awakening from its three month sleep filled my lungs.
Mutt began whimpering at the base of my perch. I tugged some small twigs from the branch I was on and dropped them for her to chew. Once she was done crunching on a twig she would immediately bark for another
We poked around the woods for a long time that day and the many days thereafter in the soft grey snow.
We were active witnesses to the great March thaw of 1974.
Each day we watched as the melting snow magically revealed the forest floor and once again filled the running creeks.
I truly enjoyed March’s winter wonders.
Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller, lives at Big Moose Lake.ltmitch3rdny@aol.com
