Signs of (wild)life! #phenology

 Late yesterday afternoon, or early evening if you prefer, the back yard was visited by half a dozen whitetail deer in two groups of three each. Their coats looked kind of scruffy as winter hair is being replaced by summer pelage. The visit was a short one since there isn’t much to eat back there, nor anywhere else this time of year. Not much has greened up or budded out in our neighborhood.

April wood ducks

Photo by J. Harrington

The pond and its feeder creek up the road are ice free again. Maybe this time for the season? (Below freezing overnight temps are forecast to return midweek.) The open water looked appealing enough that a pair of mallard drakes were loafing on the creek’s waters and a drake wood duck skittered off the pool as the dogs and I walked by late this morning. It’s hope-raising to see signs of wildlife after a long winter broken only by a visit from Santa.

The buds on the maples in front of the house haven’t really broken yet, although we noticed bud burst on a number of the local poplars. Despite the tardiness of spring this year we’ve hung hummingbird feeders. Regular feeders with sunflower chips are down thanks to avian bird flu. Rarely do we see more than one or two hummers at a time so we’ve got our fingers crossed that the nectar feeders are okay.

This weekend or next week spring chores will have to get started or we’ll be doing spring chores all summer, although that’s often the way it works around here. More and more dead branches keep dropping during the storms and winds we’ve been having. They’ll need to get collected and burned before we clean up some of the oak leaves that need to be tidied so we can seed some bee-friendly lawn and cross our fingers the birds don’t eat most of the seeds before they germinate and root. Meanwhile, we’re looking forward to picking up our first community supported agriculture spring share come Friday. Despite contrary weather, life can be good if we let it.

April Clean-up

by Hayden Carruth

He isn’t quite a eunuch but that’s 
what he calls himself, this old
two-beat codger on this spring
afternoon picking up the winter’s 
crop of twigs and bark from the lawn
to make it “look nicer” and to supply
the house with kindling next winter
for himself or his heirs, meanwhile coughing
and gasping, cursing the pain in his back,
thinking always of the days when 
each year after the run-off he was in
the woods with the early trout lillies
and violets and with his ax, saw,
and canthook, doing a man’s work 
that has no connection with sex at all. 

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.