The Winter That Was....

Well, here it is the last day of March and there is still snow 2+ feet deep in much of our woods. Granted there are many spots that are bare and the size of these areas is increasing daily but the fact remains that this has been a long and snowy winter (they are forecasting more snow yet again for tomorrow night).

My cross country skiis are still leaning against the wall on the front porch hoping for one last trek into decent snow but all of the tell-tale signs are here that spring is about to push old man winter out of the way; at least until next fall.

One of my goals this late winter was to prune all of our wild apple trees (at least as many as I could in the areas I've cleared). I tend to become a bit possessed when it comes to pruning and I will prune everything I find with branches on it. I guess I figure I won't have to come back and do it again soon if I do it while I'm there. Well, I was pruning some maples about 3-4 weeks ago (when the snow was over 3 feet deep in some places and there was no bare ground) and I noticed that the fresh cuts were beginning to weep sap. Sure enough, the maple sugar buckets began to appear on the maple trees shortly thereafter. Last Sunday was Maple Syrup Sunday in Maine. Many of the Sugar Houses open their doors to visitors and it's a spring ritual that my kids and I wouldn't miss! At the very least, we have to get our dish of vanilla ice cream covered in fresh maple syrup. We sit at a picnic table or on a woodpile and savor this tasty treat that marks the official transition from winter into spring. Last year, pretty much all the fresh maple syrup we bought and took home went into topping ice cream as a daily treat for weeks after!

Two weeks ago, in the morning, I was waiting for the school bus at the end of our driveway with my kindergarten-age daughter when I heard a bird song that made me turn my head up towards the top of a pocket of popple trees. Woop-woop-a-dee. Woop-woop-a-dee. It was the first red-wing blackbird of spring; singing solo in what would soon be a chorus of voices two weeks later. Sure enough, yesterday saw the same tree tops covered in noisy voices; chattering to each other in the squawky commoners voices they use in groups intermixed with the "woop-woop-a-dee" they use to announce their location. We have other birds that migrate through and repopulate our trees and shrubs in the spring but none so dramatically announce their presence like the red-wing blackbirds.

Yesterday, my daughter and I went for a walk in our woods to see what we could see. We stumbled upon three sets of huge wild turkey tracks and made a game of following the tracks from bare spot to bare spot. I can imagine them poking about in the warm soft soil, looking for the first bugs of spring or some tasty new shoots of greenery. For them, a nice change from pecking at frozen ground. Sometimes, when I am out working, I can hear their warbling calls coming out of the woods from a distance. It's a hauntingly unusual sound that makes the woods intimidating and inviting both at the same time.

When I drive, I like to look around (a bit too much for my wife's taste). This time of year, if you look carefully from a distance, you can see the buds on the treetops changing color. The swamp maples are usually the first buds to turn to a burgundy red that will later develop into flowers and leaves.

The plant starts in our bedroom window are doing fine this year. I've managed to position the table just far enough away from the window sill so that the cats find it awkward to jump there. Of course, it might also be that they got a taste of the hot peppers that were started first and have decided not to take a chance with the eggplants, tomatoes and onions. I do seem to recall a few chili pepper starts missing their top leaves. I'm sure to give the seedlings their daily exercise as I go through my morning ritual of turning the flats so that the younguns have to stretch their necks in a different direction each day to catch the suns rays. Their first leaves are slowly giving way to their first set of true leaves and I look forward to the day when it's warm enough at night to put them out in the cold frame and then, finally, when the kids and I plant their feet in the garden soil for the summer. This annual ritual is a necessary labor of love for me and helps to sustain me when the warm day of spring still seem far away.

My thoughts also have shifted. From winter chores to spring chores. I've about finished pruning all the apple, maple and choke cherry trees that I'm going to prune. I've decided to start taking down some of the larger fir and popple trees around our house site. The fir will be cut into 10 foot poles to use later as corduroy on some wet trail areas. The popple will be cut into four foot sections and picked up by a friend for firewood for next winter. In exchange, he will put a bee hive on our property next year. Some of the removed trees will be replaced by the beginnings of an orchard; to compliment the wild apple trees already there. Once the ground is free of snow and the soil has dried, I will mow the now abundant rows of tree prunings and chip the piles of brush. For now though, my excitement for spring must be tempered by patience as mud season is upon us and we must all wait for the waterlogged spongy soil to thoroughly melt, drain and dry. We can only hope that mud season will not be as long-winded as winter.