It’s a weird word. Let’s get something straight first. It’s important not to confuse phenology with phonology (linguistically relevant chunks of sound). Nor am I referring to phrenology, with its quackery, skull bumps and excuses for racism.

Phenology is the study of recurring plant and animal life cycle stages, or phenophases, such as leafing and flowering of plants, maturation of agricultural crops, emergence of insects, and migration of birds. Many of these events are sensitive to climatic variation and change, and are simple to observe and record.
—USA National Phenology Network

Sometime last year I became interested in cycles without immediately recognizing the interest growing in myself, and was ultimately surprised by my own increasing awe at the quiet growth and death of the earth every year. There’s still legitimate meaning to the thickness of bark on trees (harsh winter?) and the bloom time of spring plants (early thaw? Lots of rain?). Though we know a lot, seasonal cycles still surprise us, regularly. They tell us about what the planet thinks. In its own way. And they still hold a regal mystery, to an extent.

I also always keep close in my memory: Dogwoods usually bloom right at the end of April or early May. I know this because they popped right after I met David, and David has a love for dogwoods that is simultaneously adorable and odd.

Part of this interest in cycles and observation is also because I walk to work, past the same friendly trees and buildings in my quotidian tides. I noticed last year very clearly when the cherry trees on 12th bloomed (the ones on the north side of the block far later than those on the east side), when the last leaves fell from the horse chestnuts on Alder (later than the other trees) and when the hellebore, the dogwoods, and, especially, the magnolia flowered. But I neglected to write anything down during these ebbs and flows.

In early December I started keeping a little notebook on my dresser (titled PHENOLOGICAL AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS OF WEATHER AND CYCLES NEAR PENCILHAVEN IN THE YEARS TWO THOUSAND NINE AND TEN WITH OCCASIONAL ASIDES BY THE AUTHOR), and most mornings I take a moment to write down what’s going on in the natural world around me. Even my slightly curtailed urban natural world is interesting.

I choose three words to describe the weather (“bluish”, “pummeling”, “wrist-slitting”, “murky”, “dark”, “dank”, “moist” and “uuuuuuugh” have been common recent observations) and then scrawl a paragraph or so about any changes I’ve noticed in the world. Mostly this has been spare prose, as this is the time of year I have started to call “earthsleep” (I hope I’m not drifting too crystal-gripping hippie here). Sometimes I’ll note a moon phase or a handsome sunset.

To make what I’m doing in any way useful or relevant, I just signed up for the USA National Phenology Network—all of this seasonal obsession of mine can be put to use. The USA-NPN site provides a (fairly long) list of plants and trees they wish to collect data for. Then you go out and look at your chosen plants with fair regularity and answer a quick set of yes/no questions about what “phenophase” they are in.

My chosen species are Robinia pseudoacacia (Black Locust) and Trillium ovatum (we have a trillium in our yard!). I will be watching both our enormous, senescent, worryingly tippy black locust and “Sticky”, the baby black locust we’ve known since birth and David has gone to great lengths to protect.

It’s early in the season to ask, but have you noticed anything waking up yet? Around here the camellia buds are still tight and small, the magnolia branches barely swollen at the tips. There’s a small patch of forsythia a few blocks away that is slightly flowering, but I think it’s just crazy.