Waiting on Spring, Buffalo Style
March is a bit of a rollercoaster ride around here. On paper, spring starts on the 20th. The calendar insists winter is packing its bags. But anyone who has lived in Western New York for more than five minutes knows March doesn’t really follow rules. One afternoon, the sun hits your face and you start dreaming about patios, baseball games, and flowers. The very next morning, you’re pulling your hat back down over your ears while brushing fresh snow off the car.
And yet, something shifts. You can feel it in the light. It’s no longer dark outside at 5pm. You notice people lingering outside just a little longer. Even the cold days seem different, like they’re running out of time.
Of course, March will tease us. We’ll get a couple of those false spring days — maybe it hits 50, the sun is out, and suddenly the whole region loses its mind in the best way. Shorts appear. Someone’s grilling. Car windows are down like it’s June. You see people walking around squinting at the sky, smiling like they just found twenty bucks in an old coat pocket. We all know it might snow again next week. We do it anyway.
This year, Dunkirk Dave didn’t see his shadow and, around here, we’ll gladly take it. Is it scientific? Not even a little. Are we going to believe it anyway? Absolutely. After a long, cold, snowy winter, we’ll take optimism wherever we can find it.
We don’t want to jinx it and put the snow shovel in the shed just yet, but Dave gives us permission to look forward. He gives us a nudge toward the idea that maybe — just maybe — we’re closer than we think. For gardeners, that nudge is powerful because March is when the itch really starts.
You might not be able to do much in the yard yet. The ground is still half frozen, the beds are soggy, and we all know better than to trust one warm stretch. But mentally? You’re already out there. You’re walking the yard in your head. You’re rearranging things. You’re picturing color where, right now, there’s mostly brown and gray. March isn’t about planting; March is about planning and imagining. And honestly, that’s one of my favorite parts of the whole season.
When May and June arrive, everything moves fast. Life gets busy. We’re juggling graduations, vacations, sports schedules, and about a hundred other things. Decisions get rushed. We grab what’s available. We react instead of plan. But in March, we get to dream a little. There’s space to picture what you want your yard to feel like. Maybe it’s a new vegetable garden you’re looking forward to, planting more perennials for the butterflies and the bees, or a new landscaping project. These ideas show up now, before the weeds do.
No one wants to say it, lest we jinx it and have one of those years where we just kind of go from winter to summer sometime around Memorial Day, but we’re all thinking it. Spring is coming! And, I have to mention, we have an added bonus — the Sabres are actually good! We’ll likely have playoff hockey to look forward to this spring for the first time in 15 years. This hope almost feels unfamiliar, but there’s a buzz. And isn’t that what March is — turning a corner?
Buffalo people understand the value of that middle ground better than anyone. We live in it every year. We know winter can still throw a late punch. We know there might be another shovelable surprise. But we also know that the trajectory has changed. The worst is behind us. Better days are ahead.
Gardening teaches us the exact same lesson. You can’t rush it. You can’t bully the soil into warming up. You can’t plant tomatoes because you’re tired of waiting. Nature runs on its own clock, and experience has taught most of us a healthy respect for that. But you can prepare. You can think. You can get excited. That anticipation stretches the season in a beautiful way. It gives us something to look forward to before anything has even bloomed. By the time the first real warm day arrives, we’re more than ready — we’ve been rehearsing it for weeks.
March feels like a reward for hanging in there. Not the finish line. But the promise of it. So, we watch the forecasts. We celebrate the longer days. We trust Dunkirk Dave (at least publicly). We dare to believe the Sabres might give us a spring to remember. And in quiet moments, we start picturing gardens waking back up.
It happens slowly. A thought here. An idea there. A daydream about sitting outside with friends, watching something grow. Spring rarely bursts through the door in Western New York. It sneaks in gently, building momentum, asking us to be patient just a little longer. March is where that invitation begins.
