This pair of antlers was found among the woods as deer shed their winter racks. 

WHEELING – The spring season did not arrive quietly at our Ohio County homestead. Rather it showed up quite loudly with thunder, lightning and rain. Just when Mother Nature teased us with warm breezes and we thought it safe to sleep with the windows open, bam, wrong. 

The seasonal thunder storms do not allow for lulling us to dreamland. They also do not bring gentle rain to nourish the grass. On recent occasions the rain pelted the house like an automatic car wash. Swept in on strong winds, you silently pray that the trees in the yard hold their ground.

Let’s try again to open the windows. Then they arrive. Not just a few, but five or more turkeys might show up close enough to the house to loudly announce their arrival. They are as reliable as an alarm clock at daybreak. 

While according to the dictionary, a group of turkeys is called a rafter, I just refer to them as our flock. These winged visitors, on occasion, take flight despite what some people may think. Mind you, they aren’t airborne for long as their heavy bodies test the bounds of gravity. Their antics are more like, run, skip and hop into the air.

Turkeys can be quite entertaining, especially the males who are doing their best to court the hens. The alpha males of the flock are usually quite large. When they puff out their bodies, it makes you wonder how they can even walk on those bird legs. 

None of this is done without noise. The mating game is gobble-filled. Relentlessly the males circle and follow their target females until the girls relent and nature takes its course.

The turkeys are not the only visitors to make their presence loudly known. Enter in the woodpecker. Apparently, woodpeckers seeking a mate must attract their partners with a loud pecking noise. Unfortunately for us, a determined woodpecker has found his way to our roof top where he drills the gutters or downspouts. The noise is enough to bounce a sleeping person out of bed. No amount of yelling or pounding on the window ledge has deterred the bird.

Why can’t all these feathered friends and foes take their cues from the hummingbirds? I’ve yet to see the hummers arrive, but when they do, I will welcome their tiny voices as they vie for the feeders. They are truly fun to watch as they dive and swoop to attract one another. And they sleep when we sleep. They aren’t as rude as the turkeys and blue jays. 

The spring season has its upside, too. It’s nice to see the lush, green grass after last year’s drought-stricken yards that actually crunched underfoot. The trees are filling out nicely, and the woods are covered in carpets of green with a sprinkling of purple and gold ground cover plants. 

The tulips and daffodils at Oglebay Park were spectacular this year. The array of colors — orange, red, yellow and pink — are truly works of art. They did not last long, but many local and out-of-town visitors managed to capture them on their phones and cameras. They made a wonderful background for the senior school photos I saw being taken near the Mansion Museum.

Soon all the spring noises will be drowned out by summer’s roar of lawn mowers and the whine of weed whackers. That sure beats the sound of snow blowers … enjoy the season.

Heather Ziegler can be reached via email at hziegler@theintelligencer.net.