How God Does Spring in Michigan

First, He always starts later than you expect. He's busy, after all! He might give you a few hints here and there in March, and He might green up the grass for you, but don't expect much more til April.

That's when He washes His hands (He likes to wash His hands a lot, which is why it rains so much) and gets to work. That first rainstorm leaves the trees with a green coating, proving Robert Frost wrong. Nature's first green is not gold but rather moss. But it disappears as quickly as it came, and you spend the next few days squinting, assuring yourself that there really was green there. You might even convince yourself you still can see it.

April 6th

A few days later, He opens up his latest version of Microsoft Paint and opts for the airbrush.

Armed with a gray background, gray-brown trees, and some green spray paint, He gets to work, starting from the ground and working up.

April 11th. Those permalinked pine trees in the back don't count as spring colors.

April 18th

April 25th

April 25th

May 3rd

May 6th

Every now and then, He takes a break from His methodical ground-to-sky approach and airbrushes a tree in one fell swoop, just to get us excited.

Still plenty of bare branches on the other trees, though.

His color of choice is yellow-green, but it's clear He has soft spots for pink, white, yellow, and even magenta and red.

He couldn't decide on a color for this tree, so He alternated between a few.

How many magenta trees can you count?

Sometimes, He might get a little lazy,

That poor tree on the far left

but overall, His airbrushing technique is perfect and exquisite.

May 8th

Although it's unlikely He will take the paint bucket and make the sky permanently blue (gotta keep washing His hands), when He does decide to use blue instead of gray, He will be sure to use the best blues possible.

If it were up to me, I'd be using paints instead of airbrushes . . . but spring in Michigan is definitely worth the wait.