Our bogs are finally flooded into vernal pools. Skunk cabbage shoots are rising from the water again and soon should open and expose the purple and mottled spathes that protect the plants’ tiny flowers:
In a week or so, we should begin to hear the first rehearsals of our competing peeper, brown frog, and green frog choruses, each with its own version of call-and-response amphibian gospel music. In early-to- mid April the silent salamanders should be arriving for their annual life-creating dances in these waters.
That’s assuming that all will go well. I can’t shake the creepy feeling that Mother Nature doesn’t feel well and the causes may be fatal and too late to cure. And that one day the amphibian gospel music will stop, never to be sung again. The beginning of a bad ending. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 15 and 18, 2026.)