Hungry Month

March was called Hungry Month by various Indian tribes because it was the time when food supplies were the shortest.  While that may not be a reality for many of us in America nowadays, I still refer to it as hungry month.  This is the month that I am hungering for spring.  Sure there are some daffodils and a few violets, some spartan new leaves clinging desperately in refridgeration to their otherwise bare twigs, but I am craving the deep, leafy, real spring, where birds are building nests and baby animals are everywhere.  The kind of days where you can walk, barefoot, through soft grass and pick up ladybugs on your way to the apple trees, which have littered the earth with their spent petals.     That's what I'm waiting for, and it's snowing.