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Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
42 degrees, calm, mostly sunny
This is the warmest morning we have seen since last fall,
and the sun feels great !
A downy woodpecker is hammering away, perched on one of
the smaller branches
of the big maple tree by the driveway. Several starlings
fill the airwaves with song, or
conversation; I’m not sure what to call it, but it
sounds just fine to me. The snow got really
soft yesterday, so I didn’t get out on skis at all.
The Smith Road is in full-out thaw, and the
places where snowmobiles have churned up the mud will
suck the shoes right off any pede-
strian. The town crew came by yesterday and put down some
fill next to our blacktop road,
as the shoulder had eroded quite a bit during the January
rains. This is the first winter we have
had a paved driveway, and there are still some bodacious
patches of ice that seem to be taking
forever to melt. The snowpack in general is slowly
disappearing under the warmth of a late winter
sun. We had a difficult day yesterday, as our youngest
cat left this physical world, surrounded by
those who have loved her and cared for her for seven
years. I am sure she will visit us often in our
dreams, both waking and asleep, for she contained such
vital energy, more than enough to last be-
yond her short lifetime. It is too bad that none of
humankind’s pets has a life span that will match
or exceed that of a man or woman; is this to help us
learn to accept their unconditional love at its
purest, and endure their passing with heartfelt grief and
eventual acceptance? There must be some
grand plan, or we wouldn’t feel the urge to bring
pets into our lives. As much as we will miss
her, our remaining two cats and the dog don’t seem
to notice one way or another
that one of their circle is gone. Life is short; some
lives are shorter than others.
Just for today, I will be grateful for my many
blessings.
Daisy
Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 8:30 a.m.
37 degrees, calm, mostly sunny
What a lovely morning ! There is very little
breeze, and when it comes it is a gentle puff
from an indeterminate direction, more of a suggestion of
a breeze than the actual event. There
were a dozen or more starlings in the big maple tree by
the yard; all were singing, whistling, clucking,
and cackling up a storm until a few crows arrived, then
they grew quiet. All of the black birds, big and
small, sat in utter silence, then the starlings lifted
off as a single unit, leaving just the crows to return my
gaze.
Finally they too departed. Soon I heard a flurry of wings
and a metallic scraping overhead. A phoebe was
probing the eaves at the peak of the barn roof, looking
for a spot to build a nest, months earlier than I have
ever seen one of these birds before. They routinely try
to nest under the back porch roof, but usually not
until the end of May. Of course, the sidewalls are still
on the back porch this time of year; it is possible
that they would be there in March if we removed the
panels sooner. It was a sweet surprise to hear
that lovely two-note whistle after the raucous cacophony
of the starlings. Yesterday the temper-
ature climbed to forty-nine degrees, and a walk up the
Smith Road left our shoes (and the
dog) encrusted with mud. Today and tomorrow will be warm
as well, and I wouldn’t
be surprised to see robins on the bare patches of lawn
tomorrow morning.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Monday, March 8, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
35 degrees, windy, mostly sunny
A light mist moves across Gomer Hill, not exactly fog but
dimming the lights a bit.
The valley sits in a bright haze, and the Adirondack
Mountains are nearly invisible this morning.
A small flock of geese just flew past the house, headed
north; do they know something that I do not ?
I don’t know where they will find any open water.
The west wind is fierce, but not daunting. I took our
dog skiing around the meadowlands yesterday afternoon;
the wind was stiff then too, but refreshing rather
than raw. it was fairly warm outside, and the snow was a
little slow but we stayed right up on top of it,
even atop some of the tall drifts. I cleared mouse nests
out of the bird boxes; all were empty of mice,
but they must have been cozy places to begin their wee
lives. Most were made of cattail and milkweed
fluff, soft as eiderdown. When they fell onto the snow
the wind picked them up and skittered them across
the surface like wintry little tumbleweeds. It won’t
be long before male bluebirds stop by to check out the
real estate, and now the boxes are all ready to go. A
small chance of rain shows up in the forecast towards
the end of the week; will spring be early this year ?
Perhaps the geese do indeed know something...
Have a great day,
Daisy
Sunday, March 7, 2010, 9:00 a.m.
32 degrees, windy, mostly cloudy
A steady breeze from the northwest isn’t as
icy as I had expected,
but it is still a very raw morning out there. It looks
like the sun might be
appearing soon, and the occasional flashes of brilliance
almost instantly bake
the chill from the Hill. Yesterday we skied through the
swamps and pastures that
surround the Evans Road. The snow was perfect, firm
enough to support our weight
yet soft enough to get a good grip with our skis. We
skied in a big loop through land that
is usually too wet to hike through in any of the warm
seasons but is a wonderful trek in winter.
We stopped to rest at one of our favorite big trees, a
giant maple that has been tweaked and twisted
by age and wind. There were plenty of coyote tracks, some
punching through the snow as it softened
but many leaving ghostly tracks on the frozen top layer.
A few chickadees regarded us from the shelter
of small balsam trees, and two ravens called out as they
passed overhead. Turkey tracks became platter
sized after thawing and freezing a few times, but we
could sometimes see the three toes in bas-relief in
the center of the fade. When the stronger spring sun hits
critter tracks in the snow, it can distort them
so that the only way to determine what made them is often
by the stride pattern and the space be-
tween the individual prints. A fox and a cat have pretty
much the same stride pattern, and if the
track is blurred by melting it is hard to see if there
were claws, or the exact shape of the pad.
A cat usually travels in a pretty straight line, but so
will a fox if it isn’t actively hunting. This
time of year we can hope to see some actual animals as
they venture out to see if the
salad bar is open yet. Skunks are definitely around, and
raccoons have been show-
ing up in neighborhoods that haven’t wrapped their
garbage up tightly enough.
I wonder when the bears will awaken from their long
winter naps ?
Have a great day,
Daisy
Saturday, March 6, 2010, 9:00 a.m.
33 degrees, breezy, sunny
What a beautiful morning ! There was a tree full of
starlings singing assorted melodies
when I first set foot outdoors earlier, and a fleet of
chickadees has swooped through the
yard twice since then. I can hear crows in the distance,
but haven’t caught sight of them yet.
We plan to ski through toolies and swamps this afternoon,
after this bulletproof snow has a
chance to soften up. As much as the north wind blew these
past few days, the snow has stayed
hard and crusty. Now that a warmish west breeze has
arrived the snow should become much more
user-friendly. The town crew came up yesterday and pushed
the snowbanks back with a front-end
loader, and now we have twelve foot tall towers of snirt
decorating the roadside across from the
house. As the temperatures rise for the next few days, we
should see a gentle thaw start to hap-
pen; now the meltwater will have access to the drainage
ditches instead of eroding the road-
side. There is no rain in the picture for our neck of the
woods, but temperatures are pre-
dicted to rise into the thirties and reach forty by the
end of the week. Of course, there
will no doubt still be several good snowstorms afoot
before true spring arrives,
but for now the small of thawing dirt and melting snow
affords a good preview.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Friday, March 5, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
23 degrees, windy, mostly sunny
The wind is mostly out of the north, but sometimes it
seems to come from every which-a-way
at once. I was going to hang some bed linens out today,
but I think I will wait for the wind to settle
down a bit, which may not actually happen until April.
Yesterday was a windy day too, and we walked
along the Smith Road for quite a ways. When we got into a
corridor between tall trees, the sun was warm
as toast and the wind not an issue. There were plenty of
deer tracks overlaying the snowmobile tracks; hardly
any of them veered off the trail into the woods unless
there was a track to follow. The recent deep wet snow
is a little hard to navigate, be you man or beast. Our
little dog manages to tread on top of the crust, and in-
deed left no tracks at all the few times he explored the
areas beyond the bank. The only tracks on the
forest floor or in the orchard were those of larger
animals, coyotes and porcupines, and the occasional
deer. Skunks are out and about, and one left its calling
card quite close to the house a few nights ago;
we could even smell it in the cellar. It seems to have
moved on; we couldn’t find its tracks. Last night a
small black and white cat boldly came onto the back porch
where we were preparing to cook some steaks
on the gas grill; as soon as it saw us, it bolted away.
Yesterday I saw four robins in town, all gathered on a
small snowblown bit of lawn. It won’t be long before
every bare patch of grass sports these cheery harbin-
gers of spring. The first real sign of spring has
appeared at our old farmhouse, as I have to vacuum flies
out
of the sunny windowsills every noontime. I don’t
know how they find their way in through the tight
fittings,
but they are particularly bad on the sunporch, which has
not had the old wooden sashes replaced.
So far we haven’t seen any ladybugs, but they are
inevitable, so is the occasional wasp.
Keep your eyes open during the coming weeks; is it spring
at your house ?
Have a great day,
Daisy
Thursday, March 4, 2010, 8:15 a.m.
26 degrees, windy, mostly sunny
Pearlescent fair-weather clouds have been painted
across the blue sky with a light touch,
the kind of clouds that suggest angels’ wings and
gentle spring zephyrs. The wind is right out
of the north, and doesn’t feel all that gentle. The
sun is warm, however, and this is shaping up to
be a very pleasant day. Yesterday we broke a new ski
trail through the tree plantation on the Slivka
Road, crossed the creek, and entered the State trails in
the middle of the Mill Creek Run. No one had
been on that trail since we received over a foot of
heavy wet snow, and since we had just slogged over
a mile of the stuff and didn’t feel like working all
that hard, we turned around and skied back to the truck.
Friends had been on the Carpenter Road end of the trail
system on Tuesday, and reported that those trails
were in great shape, with a good track set by many pairs
of skis. We drove back roads to Carpenter Road
and parked at the Douglas Creek/Larch Loop trailhead, and
had a fine ski back to the beaver pond. It had
been a cloudy dull day when we set out, but the sun broke
through and we were soon very warm and speed-
ing along at a good pace across the fast tracks. There is
still plenty of snow in the woods, but we noticed that
streams are showing more open water than the last time we
skied there. The beaver pond, while covered with
snow so deep as to completely bury the lodge, has quite a
bit of clear water showing at the dam end. There
were plenty of hare tracks crisscrossing the banks around
the pond, and the runoff stream was particularly
lovely, with ripples of dark water sparkling between
steep snowy banks. The banks along the edges of all
of the Tug Hill brooks are beginning to show the signs of
moderating temperatures, with fracture lines and
areas where the snow has been undercut by meltwater into
secret caves and tunnels. It is fun to pretend
to be only an inch tall, and wander in my mind’s eye
through all of the crazy natural wonders that such
a tiny person might encounter. Try it sometime; an
occasional flight of fancy is good for the soul.
Have some fun today,
Daisy
Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
30 degrees, breezy, mostly cloudy
The clouds seem to be thinning, and we are due to have a
sunny week of
gradually moderating temperatures. Yesterday we cleared
the heavy wet snow
from our rooftops; some slid off of the steeper slopes on
its own, making a loud
rumbling noise that startled me every time it happened.
One of our cats was sleeping
on the windowsill directly under one such avalanche; he
levitated two feet straight up
in the air and dashed into the cellar. away from the
ruckus. It takes a lot to frighten this
cat, who has been through a lot in his long life with us,
including a hit-and-run which claimed
one of his hind legs. It is so interesting to see the
different ways in which formerly feral cats adapt
to living within our family. Our three legged boy is
eager to go outdoors at the first hint of sunshine,
even if there is still deep snow hanging around. Another
of our foundlings, who showed up in the
barn after a week of wicked cold sub-zero days and nights,
won’t go out during the winter at all,
and waits until every last speck of snow has melted away
before resuming her fair-weather hunt-
ing trips. She is quite shy, and disappears into the
cellar if our normal routine is disrupted by
company or the occasional noisy project. Our old gal, who
is near the age of twenty as far
as we can tell, has been aloof her entire time living
with us, but in the last year she has be-
come quite sociable, curling up on a lap any time someone
sits down to read or watch
television. At first glance, it seems that our cats were
lucky to find our warm and safe
home; on the contrary, we have been blessed that they let
us into their lives.
Have a purrfect day,
Daisy
Tuesday, March 2, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
29 degrees, calm, mostly cloudy
As I strolled around the yard earlier this morning,
I heard two chickadees calling
back and forth to each other, the high two-note greeting
that signals their interest in
finding a mate. A starling confounded the courtship by
whistling a perfect imitation of
the call, and soon the three birds were all in the same
tree, having a sing-off that resulted
in the chickadees flying off in a dither; the starling
was left alone, chuckling softly to himself.
I tried the call a few times to see if I could coax the
smaller birds back into the yard, and soon
was joined by the black bird, who perfectly mimicked my
slightly lower pitched notes. I also
heard the rapid-fire tattoo of a downy woodpecker
somewhere behind the barn, hopefully
not on the actual barn wood itself. I haven’t seen
one of these black and white checkered
fellows all winter, so that was a nice surprise. Crows
abound as if they own the place,
but I have not seen our ravens for a week or more;
perhaps they have taken to the
deep woods to arrange their nest. It won’t be long
before the beautiful back-
yard cacophony of spring dominates the early morning
soundtrack,
full of birdsong and the rush of meltwater down the
ditches.
Have a fine day,
Daisy
Monday, March 1, 2010, 8:15 a.m.
30 degrees, windy, overcast, snow
A steady breeze from the north occasionally blows a good
gust of arctic chill,
making my first impression of this new month one of lion-y
bluster, not lamb-y
goodness. There are several crows covering the west
meadow and woodlot, calling
loudly to be heard above the wind’s roar. I need to
go around to all of our nesting boxes
and clear away the mouse nests so that they will be ready
when the first bluebirds return, usually
well before the snow has melted sometime in mid-March.
Spring chores are starting to make their
way onto the list of things-to-do. I brought some seed
starting mix indoors to warm up, but then got
distracted and still haven’t started any vegetable
plants yet. Pepper seeds can go into their flats any time
now, but it is best to wait a few more weeks to plant
tomato seeds, usually around Saint Patrick’s Day.
Our winter basil has been picked over so many times that
it is beginning to lose the will to live, so I will
start a few more of those to keep on a sunny windowsill
for our salads and pasta dishes. We have
overwintered two rosemary plants, and it will be
interesting to see how they fare their second
summer outdoors in a climate that is anything but
mediterranian. I am already looking forward
to the first fresh greens of spring, those that Mother
Nature has planted for our enjoyment,
the dandelions and sorrel, leeks and fiddleheads, all
free for the taking. For now, a good
salad of organic romaine, avocado, grapes, onions,
gorgonzola, and candied pecans
will have to do. Check out tonight’s waning full
moon which will rise at around
7:30; it will appear full but it is one day past. Last
night’s was magical !
Have a great day,
Daisy
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