One of the best things about these, however, is that eventually they end.  And then alexanders spring up in grassy banks near the sea, and sorrel unfurls its juicy leaves, and morels poke their honeycombed heads up amongst the dying elms and apple trees.  This might be the funnest time of year to go foraging, if just for the comforting realization that nature was just playing dead; underneath it all is the constant rummel of reincarnation. 

The farmers markets, too, are again coming into their own.  Last week we sold fragrant wild garlic and freshly picked nettles for the first time this season, and we’re finally crawling out of the parsnip-and-Jerusalem-artichoke-hole we’ve been living in for ages.  Don’t judge me ungrateful vis-à-vis those wintry stalwarts, but it’s nice to see bright green for a change, outside and in pots and on plates.  There’s rhubarb, and radishes, and parsley (who knew parsley had a season?) and seakale (want a recipe?) and purple sprouting broccoli.  Glory be!

The gardeners, provided they’ve weeded and pruned industriously enough, can finally rouse their steaming compost from its wintry slumber by raking it all over the fields and garden.  Time to plant!

Most blessedly of all, the does have kidded and the ewes lambed, making the season’s first fresh goat’s and sheep’s milk cheeses stir slowly, docile as snowballs, in their bassinets.

Before we started manipulating nature, February and March were naturally lean months for meat, since the stash of winter’s salt pork would probably have reached its end (Lent thus falls fairly conveniently).  Because Easter came so early this year, Ireland was fairly short on lamb, and we ate rabbit instead.  It was only after a string of contented burps that we realized we’d just eaten Easter Bunny.  Whoops.

Sometimes one can be just a bit too seasonally inspired.