Thursday, April 18, 2019

Where's Spring?

While last winter did not strike me as having the lowest temperature-it certainly gets top consideration for longest lasting.

Winter began in November and is not willing to let go yet.  We had 6 inches of snow a couple of weeks ago-frost still in the ground, and half the pond still has a floating layer of slushy ice.

Usually when the ice goes, it goes.  But we have had consistly cold temperatures-and on any day hoping to get a poke at 60F, we have had stiff winds out of the Northeast.  Northeast, with Canada a stone's throw away, is bad enough, but the frozen pond lies to our Northeast, acting like a giant refridgerator on those promising sunny days with 40 mph wind gusts.

I coudn't wait to rake out my perennial beds-two days later they were full of leaves again-from the woods, I suppose-and empty flower pots and seedling trays scattered about the borders as well.  Once the last few chickens go to the chhicken version of the afterlife, I am going to convert their coop to a garden shed so I won't be chasing tools and containers all over the yard.

The robins came back, and the snow made them miserable.  They flew from the staghorn sumacs to the edges of the stream, making the banks look like a flock of wild turkeys had gone through.  Maybe they had, but I haven't seen them since my neighbor's son and boyfriend starting blasting them morning and night when their highbush blueberries were ripe late last summer.

I got a pretty big kick watching the flock headed by Mom and daughter crossing the lawn with their -highest count 18-juvenile turkeys.  They would go down to the stream to drink and head back to the blueberry patch and meadow every afternoon.  Usually I have a tom or two and a couple hens this time of year, but I haven't seen them, either.

I guess that particular hen is no more-I watched her with her little ones as young as day old through the summer last year.  They used to roost in my big hemlocks.  The first time she wnet to roost wiht them she was too high for them and they couldn't get up.  WHat a racket of distress those little turkeys made!  Momma finally had to get down and find an easier place for them to reach.

As they grew, they would all climb the bank next to the house, which, if they flew straight out, would gain them about twenty feet up in the trees without too much effort.  They they would fly from tree to tree getting higher as they went.

They didn't bother any of my garden-I was worried about the ripening pumpkins, but they left them alone.  I put the last pumpkin on the lawn last fall and said, "this is for the deer" and believe it or not, one morning there were deer prints-sometime in January- where a doe and yearling had come out of the woods and pawed the frozen pumpkin out of the snow and ate it over a period of several nights.

Deer also apparently love evening primose crowns.  I let some self sow in the garden-the bees like it, and I find the yellow flowers and stalks interesting-but apparenty the deer relish it, as well.  That was fine with me-I have plenty and it self sows readily.  


Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Cutting

Ok, I know I get obsessive about stuff.  I annoy the crap out of those close to me because I will just not shut up about some things.  Then the same crap will just play over and over in my head, and when I think, "ok, I am going to force myself to distraction and ignore it,"  right away something will happen that will thrust the whole issue back in my face.

I mean, Trump actually used the word "coyotes" last night in his rant about terrible things the country faced. My daughter says it was slang for immigrants, but it was still weird.

The local who owns the large (50+) acres behind me has moved from harassing the neighborhood with coyote "hunters" and bait piles of rotting meat, to having the local Larry logger come in to cut it.

When I bought mine 20 years ago, that piece was supposedly "Resource Protected" between the marshland and the deer wintering habitat.  Somehow it was not marked that way on the newer zoning map, so there goes what should be protected habitat down the road in an 18 wheeler pulp truck.

I recognize that regrowth forest needs to be thinned, so I am not necessary against the cutting of trees.  I have had to take out a couple here, and the others have benefitted.  But I am talking gorgeous more than century old eastern hemlock and white pines, seeming like they are at least 100 feet tall, monarchs of the forest, food and home to dozens of species, gone down the road in a logging truck, beheaded and de-limbed, great red gashes of bark streaking down the sides.  Laying in the back of the truck stacked tight, sawn into lengths, next to their brothers and mothers.

I step outside at twilight and smell resin in the air.  I imagine the great stumps weeping, for it has been well into the 50's during the day and the sap is surely running, running, over the stump and soaking into the ground.  It's the lifeblood of the ancient softwood, pumping water out of the ground to spill back out, like a vision of a headless chicken spurting arterial blood, only this is a tree and it can only lie there and weep.

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Another Year

Sometimes I feel like I am living in the wrong hemisphere. I like it hot.  I guess growing up in the mid Atlantic states in the late 60's and 70's being a sunworshipper does that to you.

Tans were all the rage back then-the darker the better.  And my sisters, 6 years older, were part of that fad, and being a good little sister I of course mimicked them.  Towel over the eyes and baby oil on the rest, wait 20 minutes, flip, 20 more, then dip.  A couple of hands of gin rummy under the umbrella, repeat.

I do like storms, though, and after the blizzard of '78 I decided I should move to Maine if I really wanted to see snow.  I should have had my head examined.  Haha.

I just re-read my post from last March, and I didn't shovel those last few storms.  Then the driveway turned into muck central when it melted and we had to park at the end and squish our way up for two weeks.  (Unless I wanted to rake the ruts in every afternoon-NOT)

I'll be an empty-nester soon.  Been busy going through the college application process with the Willow, who wants to major in medicine.  She will be going off in the fall.  Her brother, the Firebird, is about to complete his under grad studies in Mechanical Engineering and decided to persue his Master's.   He's applied to do some more work for NASA, but it's unclear if the shutdown has affected that.

Me, I'll just have to re-invent myself. (Taking suggestions! :) )