A custom applicator with Tama-Benton Cooperative applies fertilizer to a field belonging to Mark and Sandy Dengler located northeast of Clutier on Tuesday, April 12. –Photo by Ruby F. Bodeker

From the initial stages of spring fieldwork, to longtime backyard daffodils blooming, to floppy-eared visitors hiding eggs in the local city park – it seems spring has finally begun to take shape.

Although it may have been hard to appreciate those signs with snow falling last Wednesday, high winds wreaking havoc on Thursday, and then cold temperatures descending over Easter weekend, one of the surest signs of spring – farmers out in the fields applying fertilizer – was visible throughout northern Tama County during Holy Week.

In the town of Traer, daffodils planted decades ago by the late Ann Brackett – the first woman to be elected to Traer City Council – at long last came out of winter hiding and bloomed on Monday, April 11, in what is now Brackett’s grandson Dave Degner’s yard.

Despite low temperatures, children from across the communities of Traer, Clutier, and Dysart donned warm winter clothes Saturday morning – including snowsuits – to hunt for colorful plastic eggs in the communities’ parks and have their photo taken with the Easter Bunny.

And finally, many farmers with cover crops seeded last fall were rewarded with visible fields of green this past week including south of Dysart in the fields of Mitch Wieben where cereal rye billowed in the wind like rippling lake waters beneath a blue clear sky on Thursday, April 14.

A youngster works to deposit a white plastic Easter egg into his bag while fellow toddlers do the same in the background during North Tama Elementary PTO’s egg hunt held in Taylor Park on the morning of Saturday, April 16, in Traer. –Photo by Ruby F. Bodeker

The signs of spring are certainly there – now the wait is on for this finicky weather to sort it out in turn.

Daffodils planted close to 30 years ago by the late Ann Brackett –Traer’s first female member of the city council – pictured in bloom early last week in the Traer yard of Brackett’s grandson Dave Degner. –Photo courtesy Dave Degner

A cover crop of cereal rye ripples in the wind on a field belonging to Mitch Wieben located south of Dysart on Thursday, April 14. –Photo by Ruby F. Bodeker