This spring is feeling exactly like one of those Jack-in-the-box wind-up toys. The crank handle has been winding … winding … winding … winding until just when I gave up really expecting it anymore, it POPPED open. The last couple of days I have been having the same kind of adrenaline spasm I used to love (and dread a little bit) as a kid.

It just seems like spring has been going along at a measured pace and even holding back a little. But after a rainy spell and a couple of actually warm days, spring has shifted into a higher gear. The daffodils are just about all out here now, early and late at once and the early ones, if you look closely, are finally beginning to go by. Tulips are colored buds one day and open the next. Leaves are emerging on trees and shrubs and looking almost full-sized by the afternoon. Quick-quick.

We’ve been going along too; steadily keeping up and holding back. Until today. Now it seems as if everything needs to happen all at once – yesterday. We’re getting plant orders in, shifting plants out of the greenhouse and others in, and we’ve started to plant and transplant in the gardens as if there’s no tomorrow.

But of course there is a tomorrow. Just because spring is picking up the pace doesn’t necessarily mean we gardeners will fall behind. To me, the must-do list seems impossibly long only right up until we start doing it. And while the work always takes less time than I think it will, spring also tends to linger longer than it ever feels like it will. There’s still plenty of time to breathe and enjoy it.

Have you felt a Jack-in-the-box jolt too? Do you feel like you can keep up with spring’s pace?