Previews of coming attractions

Have you yet started to think about how sweet the sounds of melting snow will be. There'll be the high-pitched plinks of water drops dripping. The softly susurrating splashes of rivulets coursing beside and under disappearing snow banks. Gutters and drainpipes will be hissing with flows and fountains as snowflakes free themselves from rooftop entrapments.

How soon will Winter flow away?

Photo by J. Harrington

Much of this water will flow over still frozen ground to local creeks, brooks and streams. Later, as the frost leaves the ground, the late melting flows will help replenish groundwater, flowing down before it travels across. Sometime next month, unless we have very bad karma, shallow local ponds and marshes should start to become ice-free. All of this will be coming about approximately when the sap starts flowing in our local maple sugarbush. Days nicely above freezing complement nights that dip below 32℉ to provide an abundance of sap that, when boiled, becomes syrup. Minnesota state parks offer a number of syruping sessions with hands on information and demonstration sessions from early March to mid-April.

Shall we start a "pool" on ice out dates?

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, back at the feeders, a cardinal pair have been seen much more frequently and yesterday we finally saw both pileated woodpeckers at the same time. It looks as though we'll have a breeding pair nesting somewhere nearby this Spring. All in all, we're looking forward to the opportunities to "go with the flow."

The Thaw

Henry David Thoreau, 1817- 1862

I saw the civil sun drying earth’s tears —
Her tears of joy that only faster flowed,
Fain would I stretch me by the highway side,
To thaw and trickle with the melting snow,
That mingled soul and body with the tide,
I too may through the pores of nature flow.
But I alas nor tinkle can nor fume,
One jot to forward the great work of Time,
‘Tis mine to hearken while these ply the loom,
So shall my silence with their music chime.

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