Hankering Time

"Hankering Time ...  that's in February and March each year," wrote the old man in his 93rd year in 1968.

It's most assuredly hankering time for this woman in her 71st year.

I'm hankering for the brilliance of my forsythia planted in a row next to the highway - something special about that cheerful yellow display that soon gives way to long spikes of green.

I am hankering for the feeling of the moist, cool spring soil between my fingers and the miracle of sprouting seeds.

I am hankering for the first chorus of spring peepers from the spring run behind this old farmhouse.

Here the rest of what the old man had to say about Hankering Time.

"Some people have a hankering for new maple syrup, the most delicious of all of nature's sweets and surely the most delicate.

"The piscators are hankering for a mess of speckled beauties just taken from some of the 700 miles of trout streams of Potter County.

"Then there are the hankerers for the spring ephemeral greens known as the leek. And how some gorge themselves!

"There are many who hanker to get seeds in the soil for tomato plants and they are admiring the beautiful illustrations in seed catalogues.

"Youngsters are hankering for the time when they can cast away their school books and go swimming.

 "I am hankering for one of those early spring days – bright sunshine and warmth, shadbush in bloom, trees bursting with buds, peepers singing their mating songs, bees humming, a tiny brook babbling.

 "And so it goes at hankering for old and young."