About groundhogs and turkeys

One week from today will be groundhog day. Will Spring come early this year? Spring is usually one of those seasons Minnesota doesn't do well. Winter drags on and on and on and... and then we have a Spring weekend, and then it's Summer. Years past we've tended to complain about our lack of a decent Spring. This year we're going to do our best to ignore as much of the weather as we can and, as the days warm and the ground reappears from under the  snow cover, we're going to get outside, in rain gear if necessary, and go poking around. We've spent too much of the time during the past year in the house waiting for the wind to die down, or the rain to stop, or the temperatures to cool off or... 

a strutting tom turkey in the field behind the house

Photo by J. Harrington

A major question facing us is whether to apply for a turkey license and, if so, for which period. That's where Minnesota's irregular Spring weather again can disrupt the best laid plans. To be fair, however, we recall being chased out of South Dakota a couple of different years by Spring blizzards that weren't in the forecast when we headed out. We're going to pay close attention to what happens February 2 and look at the extended forecasts and then probably just toss a coin, although we lean toward later in the hunting periods since the weather is more likely to be warmer by then, unless, of course, Summer has already settled in by mid-May.

When we first moved to Minnesota, wild turkeys had been pretty much extirpated from New England and we only huntable in Southeastern Minnesota. In the latter, the resident population has flourished and  its range expanded. By now, each of the six New England states also has a turkey season. That's progress!

Instructions on Not Giving Up

Ada Limón - 1976-

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

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