It's Coming

Spring, that is. 

It seems we are being blessed with an early Spring and I couldn't be happier. The last two winter previous to this one have been so long and so brutal, that I wasn't ready to face it again. 

This morning I ran up to Swords, and paused by the marsh. Even though it's still locked in ice, it is alive with sounds. Red winged blackbirds,  geese,  and the sound of the ice breaking and cracking filled the air. 

Soon, with a rise in temperature, that same air will be filled with the sound of spring peepers. 

I love early spring. Hope, anticipation and so many beautiful things to come.

 

From the Weather Book

It's been a long time since I've updated the weather book.  Truth be told, I've been avoiding it because the end of winter and beginning of spring this year have been so depressing.  Instead of going through each day and reporting on the glum, tedious and repetitive weather, I'm going to make it easy on everyone.

March

It snowed.  It was really cold.  It snowed some more.

It usually looked like this:

April

It snowed.  It was a little warmer.  The ice went out April 29.

It often looked like this:

 

 

 

And now we are all caught up!

Ice Out

As I mentioned in my last post, while it SEEMS we are quite far behind last year in terms of Spring getting started, we really aren't.  The ice is out, only 4 days behind last year.  Now, we do still have a small pile of snow in the front, and there is still some in the deep bush, that is only because of the vast amount we received this year.

 

I took a hike through the bush last week and was struck by how quickly everything changes once the snow is gone (or almost gone).  The air was permeated with the smell of wild leeks sprouting and the sound of ephemeral streams.

 

 

 

Onward Spring!

Compare and Contrast

Early April 2012

Early April 2013

Early April 2014

Same

At the moment it is pouring rain outside.  It' a dull and dreary day, and I don't mind it one bit.

 

Why?  Because it's something different.  We have had endless strings of gorgeous, sparkling days, but enough is enough.  This winter and early spring I have learned that, while beautiful, the same weather day after day gets monotonous.  Boring.  It seemed we were stuck in a rut of winter.

 

I crave the change in seasons.  It is so nice to see the great wheels of the seasons turning once again as we creep ever closer to warm weather.

 

 

Bright, Bright

Today was an absolutely stunningly bright early spring day. 

 

Perfect for strapping on snowshoes (and a baby) and heading out for a hike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Change

Now that the temperatures are consistently above zero, we can see REAL changes start.

 

The lake is blackening, robins are singing and the snow continues to melt.  Soon, the fields will begin to green, amphibians will be active - spring peepers will start calling and the roadsides will be studded with turtles on the move, and the first leaves on trees will pop.

 

This time last year, daffodils were already in bloom.  Not so this year, but very good things come to those who wait.  Anticipation can make the reward that much more sweet, and the lush, green spring and early summer that is coming will be sweet indeed.

 

 

A Spring Day

New life.

Mud.

 

 

Sun.

Not Complaining.

While the temperatures we have been experiencing so far this spring are still in the realm of normal, I will admit that the weather has been somewhat of a tough pill to swallow. 

 

I'm not complaining, though.

 

We had snow last night and again this morning.  The ice still booms on the lake through the night - not because it's breaking up, but because it's still forming.  We have had temperatures well below 0 overnight during the past week.  The lake has shown no signs of melting ice yet.

 

We have lost a significant amount of snow, due to rain and some warmer daytime temperatures, but much still remains.

 

I'm not complaining.

 

Hopefully one day soon, we will wake up to the robins singing, and the first green shoot emerging from the earth.  That day is not today, and probably not tomorrow...or the next.

Still not complaining.

Garlic Shoots

When your fresh garlic gets a little old, sometimes a little green shoot will appear in the clove.  Here's something you can do so they don't go to waste.

 

Peel each clove without damaging it.  Place in root side down in a clear glass container.  Be careful to discard any cloves that look like they have started to rot - they will continue to do so in the container.  Add just enough water to cover the root end (no more a few millimetres).  Place in a bright window.  Replenish the water daily.  Soon you will see new root growth and green shoot growth.

 

 

 

 

The shoots are completely edible. The shoots that I grew are quite pungent and sharp. They are  fantastic as a garnish garlic dishes that I want to be even more garlicky or as a milder flavour in salads or any fresh mixture of veggies.

 

 

 

Makin' Tracks

The fields and forest have been busy, busy places when we have been busy doing other things.  It always astounds me how animals have their own patterns, and they are ever present and yet, we rarely see them in the course of our daily lives.  They, of course, know what we're up to all the time.

 

 

 

The vast majority of tracks I come across are fox as seen above - coming and going, here and there, and hunting rodents under the snow.

 

But then there's this:

 

 

 

I've never seen anything like this, and after a bit of research, can say that it's probably a beaver track.  But maybe I'm wrong.  Does anyone out there know for sure? 

 

Leave a comment!

Be Here Now

Be here now, no other place to be

Or just sit there dreaming of how life would be

If we were somewhere better

Somewhere far away from all worries

Well, here we are

Lyrics from "Be Here Now",  Mason Jennings 

Those lyrics pretty much sum up my thought process right now.  I am pushing myself to live in the moment.  Adopting this philosphy is somewhat out of my comfort zone.  I'm a planner and a list maker.  That's not to say that I've totally abandoned all my crazy type-A, organizing ways, but I'm trying to soak up the good things that are around me when they are happenening.

What's happening right now?  Spring woodland flowers.

In the spring, the forest canopies are wide open as the new leaves start to emerge.  This illuminates the forest floor in a way that it never is any other time of the year.  New growth emerges in the form of delicate woodland flowers.  Pockets of green on the dusky brown of last fall's leaves give them away.  These plants take advantage of the light and bloom in April and May.  By later May, the canopy is closed, and the flowers are finished until next year. 

Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum)

Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica)

White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

Trilliums usually bloom later - they are typically in full force come mid-May.  Our woods are blanketed in them.

I hope you are out there enjoying all the moments of your life.

Hear "Be Here Now" by Mason Jennings here.

Spring Peepers

Last night the spring peepers were out peeping in all their glory.  It had been a warm, humid day and conditions were perfect for them.  I thought about getting outside to try to record them singing, but I was tired and busy. etc, etc.  You know how it goes.

So I didn't.

This morning it is cold again, and there are tiny little flakes of snow flying through the air.  It's fore casted to be only about 4C all day, and we have the wood stove roaring once again.  A day to snuggle up with blankets and books, but not a day for spring peepers.  It seems I'll have to wait for the next warm spell to get out and record them.

Spring peepers require some pretty specific conditions to come out and grace us with their presence.  You generally will hear peepers on warm, wet spring nights, when night temperatures stay above 10C.  Peepers are nocturnal - that's why you hear them in the evening and during the night.  Amazingly, they can survive being frozen.  So, even when you can't hear the peepers, they are there, waiting.

Flooded, marshy fields are a perfect peeper habitat

The lesson I learned, or rather was reminded of,  from the wild swing in weather conditions is to take advantage of amazing things when they are happening.  Natural events like the peepers are ephemeral.  They don't last long, and you never know what the future may hold.  Snow, or otherwise.

Follow Your Gut

The other night I slipped away for half an hour to go for a walk.  I soon found myself in the field across the road with the intent to "go around the mountain".  I needed this hike, as I have a teething 13 month old at home and was about to lose my damn mind if I didn't get out of the house without the little monkey clinging to me.

Instinct took me in a different direction, though, and I managed to stumble across the beaver pond my husband's father recently told him about.

During the hike, I made my way through two older, long abandoned beaver ponds.

The first is visible from the road, and just has one tiny stream intersecting it.  The stream ran earlier in the month, but it's mostly dried up now - just soggy earth left.

The second old beaver pond is through the woods a little ways.  Walking through the forest I came upon a knee high ridge.  This ridge would have been the old dam.  The field was intersected with many different streams, all seeming to go in different directions and ending in dead ends.  Like a maze.

At the southwest corner of the field I spied where the water was entering the field, flowing over some rocks.  I hiked in that direction and was rewarded with a cool, dark babbling brook.  I continued walking upstream.  The brook is narrow and shallow, with a few deeper pools here and there, filled with rocks.  It's bordered on both sides by a narrow flood plain, and then steep banks.

As I walked on I thought perhaps this would lead me to the beaver pond my husband told me was back here.


I was right.


A short way further up the valley, I came upon the beaver pond.  It was about 6:45 in the evening and the shadows were deep and dark, the sun being so low as to just barely hit the bottom of the valley. 

The photos that I have of this place do not do it justice.  It's bordered all around by high, steep banks.  Vibrant moss grows on rocks and trees.  I felt as if I had stepped into a fairy tale.  In the middle of the pond, an enormous tree has fallen.  The pictures do not accurately show how huge this tree really is - there's nothing I could have put beside it to show scale. 

So entranced was I with my find that I didn't even stop to see if there were signs of recent beaver activity.  I think that the pond has been abandoned though.  Because of the fact that water flows freely from it, and the fact that no animals signs stood out to me, I guess that the beavers that called this pond home have moved on. 

I really want to go back - and soon.  I want to follow the stream farther up and discover it's source.  I want to visit the pond when the light is better and take some great photos.  I want someone to accompany me to stand beside the big tree!

This hike was proof again that my gut tells me everything I need to know - and when I listen, I am richly rewarded.

These Grey Days

Here's the problem with an early blast of summer in March - when the weather settles down again into normalcy,  it can suck the life right out of you.  It's grey, it's cold, it's blah.  This morning there wasn't even a hint of colour on the horizon.

Today's high is forecasted to be 6C, and when we awoke it was hovering around 0.  We went out for a quick walk and it started snowing.  We were not impressed.

All of this is part of normal end of March weather, I guess, but I don't have to be thrilled with it. 

I'm desperate to get outside for walk and hikes (my husband just told me about a beaver pond his dad found in the woods behind his house), but the biting wind and rain and snow keeps us indoors - at least for today.