Daffodils, peepers, seed starting & snow - It’s spring on the South Shore.

April 28, 2025

I posted a new video to YouTube last week about early spring happenings. Of course, as is the nature of writing or recording life, the events are already over by the time you publish. And with the pace that spring moves they are doubly over.

In the introduction of this video, I discuss how spring in Nova Scotia, particularly in the South Shore area where I live, is a lengthy and gradual season that spans from late March to early June.

Having lived most recently in Montreal, that location is my frame of reference. Milder temperatures start earlier in Nova Scotia than they do in Montreal. However, once the warming trend starts, it accelerates faster in Montreal, making for an earlier summer and shorter spring than in Nova Scotia.

What I’m saying is that the South Shore has a long spring. And my video is about the first part of it.

Some thoughts on Spring in general.

When we were raising our family and homeschooling the kids there was a crescendo of activity this time of year. Something that seems true for families regardless of the type of education they choose.

The calendar season of spring, with its tending to frenetic, exiting winter dormancy energy coalescing with a protracted period of end-of-school-year completion and activities, created overwhelm and stress for me.

These feelings, plus the experience of transition that naturally accompany a season of beginnings and endings would make me cranky and generally out of sorts during spring. But also I love spring. Green! Flowers! Light! Possibilities!

Spring stress would be mitigated somewhat by the longer days and newness of green growth and blooming flowers. After sitting inactive during the blahs of March I’d once again be regularly grabbing my camera to capture something pretty. The excitement and stimulation to the senses would keep me going. But too much of that is also tiring!

Spring is a season of “much-ness”. And I am person who likes manageable.

Right on the heels of homeschooling, I went back to school myself to do a graduate degree and so educational rhythms, the academic calendar and its attendant cultural activities have defined my springs since like, forever.

I’m done school now. And our nest is empty. I’m curious to see how school-less spring will play out.

Spring carries a lot of cultural expectations, especially around schooling. And as a rule, I don’t like cultural expectations, in general, and I certainly don't like schooling ones. I homeschooled for a reason. And I am now free of that particular set of obligations. Thank Goddess!

Nature is the primary driver this spring. (And maybe the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs, which are completely culturally-mediating but also completely voluntary, unlike schooling.)

An aside about cultural expectations.

Our lives are defined by and lived within culture; I get that. And we are subject to cultural expectations in every aspect of our lives. But since I was a child, I have chaffed at expectations, norms, and standards for which I either couldn’t see a purpose or perceived as harming people somehow.

Cultural norms arise out of various human needs and relations. I am not prepared to discuss, in this moment, why and how these norms come about but I’m regularly evaluating them in my life and picking and choosing which ones I will abide by and to what degree. There’s a certain amount of going along to get along. But by nature I resist go along to get along.

I acknowledge that I participate in many cultural norms (even where more criticality and resistance would be warranted by own values!) But my general orientation to cultural expectations, of all kinds, is to ask: Why? Who says? What gave them the right to decide?

Cultural norms feel like theatre to me, where we’re supposed to play a role and go along with our part. And I’m speaking here of culture at all levels from micro to macro contexts.

My point is, there are many things I just don’t like playing along with. And many other things I have to, to avoid pain (or penalty) or to achieve a culturally-mediated goal.

In the context of spring, end-of-school-year related busyness is completely cultural. There’s no reason for it other than “we wrote the play and now we need to perform it”. Kindergarten graduations are emblematic for me of this. Really?!

Scholastic rituals have increased and I have some theories. In secular pluralistic cultures, composed of various worldviews but adhering to none as the overarching belief, we rally around schooling as a shared value that gives us a cultural identity. Combine this with the overall increase in metrics, credentially, and standardization of schooling (owing to many economic, political and social reasons) and you get a culture wrapped up in school rituals.

Where that natural human desire to ritualize and memorialize has historically been directed to the natural world and/or religion (and in some contexts, still is) we are now adherents to the “religion” of school.

And I’m just not really into all that.

End of aside

I am now in a season of life where I have more freedom to lean into natural seasonal cues. There is less obligation for the cultural ones, especially as related to child raising. And whoa, are there ever a lot of those!

I’ve written about this earlier this year in my seasonal living post.

Funny, I wasn’t expecting to return to that same theme in this writing. But here we are.

Scholastic theatre and rituals don’t drive my days and expectations, but I still have to deal with spring’s nature-mediated expectations. Especially for the garden. And of those, there are many!

With warmer temperatures and more daylight there is so much that can happen. And all those possibilities, specifically in the garden and on the property, call to to me. Coming out of winter all these activities are possible and demand attention but, even with an empty nest, I’m still limited by time, energy, and resources.

I have to regularly remind myself the same thing I’ve said through many springs, “you have a lifetime Renee, you don’t have to do it all in these two months”.

That’s where things are at, as I hit publish on this post at the end of early spring and as mid spring begins.

Pacing myself through the intensity of the season. Because, as it turns out, spring doesn’t need school or any other culturally-mediated activities to make the season full. Spring is its own fullness.

It would appear from the photographs in this blog post that all days are sunny here. I think the sun motivates me to take photos. I assure you we've had our share of cloudy, rainy, and as the video shows, snowy, springs days!