Their sound is as much a seasonal signal as the whistling of migrating ducks’ wings.

Overnight it comes, house by house, like a virus spreading unseen.

It is the whine of a Briggs & Stratton rotary engine, attached to a 22-inch blade (though more and more turf warriors are shifting to seated, self-propelled, zero-turn behemoths for their relatively tiny portion of the green Earth) swishing through the winter growth and dandelions like Gillette through a three-day beard.

March 1 marks the unofficial opening of the mowing season, and seemingly no one in these parts missed this year’s first day/weekend.

Turf was attacked with ardor that by June will give way to angst and by August to downright antipathy.

Most of the grass now is really clover and other junk dropped off by all those birds fed during the winter.

The season unofficially closes on the Saturday before Thanksgiving — “aren’t you going to trim the yard before everyone comes?”

That’s nine months, every four to seven days. An hour or so each time. Gallons and gallons of sweat, dozens of six-packs, all to create a golf course look.

Not likely to get much sympathy from friends still shoveling snow or living through another sub-freezing day.