Wonder*FULL

March 2026

A Beautiful Pause in a Fast-Paced World

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A rusty machete. A shovel. A pair of garden gloves.

I gathered the supplies I needed for a backyard project while a pair of Abert’s towhees scratched on the ground in the leaf litter under the birdfeeders. The towhees called back and forth with a tumble of scratchy notes.

March is the season of pairing. On my morning walks, I’ve seen pairs of house finches, mourning doves, vermilion flycatchers, inca doves, and eastern starlings. The crowning glory was a pair of kestrels, more interested in each other than hunting for breakfast from their treetop perch.  

And now a male and female towhee kept me company while I removed an overgrown century plant from a landscaping bed.

Never plant an agave in a small space, I thought to myself as I muscled another shovel-full of dirt from underneath the large succulent. The century plant had grown to a four-foot circumference. Before it grew to its maximum size of ten feet, I knew I needed to dig it out.

“OUCH!” The razor blade leaves stabbed me in the arm for the second time, leaving behind a trail of blood.

With rusty machete in hand, I whacked off the points of the leaves or pencas, before once again attacking the root ball. I severed the soil-covered roots one by one, being mindful of the sharp tool in my hands. I wanted to avoid an unwanted headline: Mayor’s Wife Calls 911 From Machete Wound.

Um…no thanks.

When the agave finally rolled free, a Abert’s towhee flew past my head, landing in the cats’ claw vine next to our ramada. The mate soon followed. The pair flew back and forth several times, always returning to a specific leafy spot in the lattice.

With its smudgy face on a mostly brown body, the Abert’s towhee belonged in a Cinderella story, like the maiden who sat near the ashes on the hearth. And while this pair was not found in the pages of a fairytale, they did belong in the yearly story of springtime in the desert.

The towhees were building a nest.

In our culture, we are used to dividing the year into four seasons: spring, summer, fall, and winter. In the ancient Japanese culture, however, the four seasons were each divided into six, with each of those twenty-four subdivisions (sekki) divided further into three, for a total of seventy-two microseasons (kō). 

Still recognized today, the microseasons have poetic names like frogs start singing, cotton flowers bloom, and first cherry blossoms open.

These seventy-two microseasons are a way to express the passing of the year in a gentle, poetic journey. Learning to pay attention draws the focus to the subtle shifts of the natural world. 

This focus is not limited to one culture but can be applied anywhere. In my backyard, in a city, located in the Sonoran Desert, this microseason could be named Abert’s towhees build nest. In fact, the moment inspired my own haiku:

towhees gather twigs

latticed alcove nursery

spring’s timeless nesting

If you are local, you are invited to a poetry class on this exact topic!

To all my readers, keep scrolling for poetry class info, for a geek-out section about roses made out of stones, for more photos, poems, and a giveaway.

Welcome to Wonder*FULL March.

Keep scrolling for a poetry workshop for locals!!

But first, the FINAL PHOTO of American white pelicans that winter nearby, with suggested captions from my social media followers:

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All photos are from Lynne Hartke, unless otherwise noted.

California poppies, taken in California! Century Plant photos from my backyard. Abert’s Towhee is from All About Birds, Cornell Lab (The birds in my yard do not like paparazzi). Desert marigolds taken in the Superstition Mountains. Kevin at Crucifix Canyon. Kevin’s boots. Chalcedony desert roses from Crucifix Canyon. American White Pelicans from Gilbert Riparian Preserve. Cactus Wren painting and Ocotillo painting by Devon Meyer.