Signs of spring
You know winter is on its way out when ...
Ah, spring. The word brings a twinkle to the eye, a bounce to the step. What, you weren't dreaming of a white St. Patrick's Day? You want flowers, sunshine, and strawberries? The weather may be uncooperative, and the strawberries are flown in from California, but there are flowers in Boston and many other signs of spring - if you know where to look.
JUST DUCKY
You know you've missed them all winter - those colorful swimmers plunging into the Charles River, looking so charming as they paddle under the Longfellow Bridge. That's right. Starting Monday at 9 a.m., Boston Duck Tours are back for the season. These amphibious vehicles take travelers and curious locals on a narrated tour of Boston landmarks, then drive straight into the river and float. Waddle into your favorite metal waterfowl at the Museum of Science or the Prudential Center, and splash into spring. (Boston's favorite wooden waterfowl, the Swan Boats at the Public Garden, will return on April 14.)
Boston Duck Tours leave from the Museum of Science and Prudential Center. 617-267-3825. bostonducktours.com
Purists who wish to sail the Charles without mechanical appurtenances will be happy to know that Community Boating in Boston reopens for the season on March 31. Beginning sailors can purchase a 30-day introductory membership at Community Boating for $80.
Community Boating, 21 David Mugar Way, Boston. 617-523-1038. community-boating.org
GREEN THUMBS, UNITE
Winter is a cold and solitary time for gardeners, stuck inside with only their seed catalogs for company. It's time to get out, even if the soil's still too wet to dig. On March 31, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., gardeners and wanna-be-gardeners are invited to the 32d annual Gardeners Gathering sponsored by the Boston Natural Areas Network. This is your chance to go to workshops, see who won this year's Community Gardening awards, and chat with experienced and new gardeners about soil, mulch, compost, seeds - everything your non-gardening friends are tired of hearing about.
Curry Student Center, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston. 617-542-7696. bostonnatural.org/gardeners_gathering.php
SPRING SHOWERS BRING ...
Behold the lilies of the greenhouse! They do not sow, neither do they reap. They just lounge around under a glass roof looking fabulous. Buy yourself some of these glamour gals at the Forest Hills Cemetery Greenhouse Lily Sale on Sunday, from 2 to 3 p.m.
Forest Hills Cemetery, 95 Forest Hills Ave., Jamaica Plain. 617-524-0128. Free admission. foresthillstrust.org
If you're feeling a bit more exotic, check out this weekend's Spring Orchid Sale at Waltham's Lyman Estate. These decadent blossoms are known for their freakish sex lives, which involve deceit, treachery, and a bewildering variety of insects - all for the sake of pollination. You can purchase your hot-house flowers, then linger among hardy bananas, orange trees, grape vines, and seedlings being raised for the estate's May herb sale. This weekend sale runs tomorrow through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Lyman Estate Greenhouse, 185 Lyman St., Waltham. 781-891-4882. Free admission. historicnewengland.org
HOW SWEET IT IS
You may not see any leaves out yet, but your friendly neighborhood sugar-maple trees have been hard at work since mid-February making sap down in their roots and pushing it up their trunks into their buckets. Well, actually, those buckets don't belong to the maple trees, and the trees would much rather send the sugary stuff up to their branches, but who listens to trees, anyway?
Thanks to New England maple orchardists, fresh 2007 maple syrup is available right now. Formaggio Kitchen and South End Formaggio are carrying organic maple syrup ($16.95 for a 16 oz. bottle) from the Krueger-Norton sugar house of Shrewsbury, Vt. According to the K-N website, its liquid amber is ''just pure maple sap boiled down over a wood fire.''
Formaggio Kitchen, 244 Huron Ave., Cambridge. 617-354-4750. South End Formaggio, 268 Shawmut Ave., Boston. 617-350-6996. formaggio-kitchen.com
Salts restaurant in Cambridge, by contrast, still finds excitement underground. Starting next week, Salts will be offering organic beef tenderloin with ice carrots and red wine, with more dishes to come. The restaurant's ''ice vegetables'' are exquisitely sweet carrots, parsnips, and other root crops that have spent the winter in the ground concentrating sugars in their earthy flesh. ''They'll be pulled out as soon as the ground thaws a bit,'' says chef Gabriel Bremer.
Salts Restaurant, 798 Main St., Cambridge. 617-876-8444. saltsrestaurant.com 