It might as well be.............

I had thought of several erudite and pundit like things that I wanted to write today, and then I woke up and the sky was turquoise and the sun was coming up all rose and pink behind the trees and the goldfinches were swirling around the bird feeder chirping in a crazy kind of counterpoint and it is the first day of spring. Besides, I couldn't find the picture or the text I wanted to use. (Have I mentioned that my office resembles an archaeological dig?) So I started throwing loads of wash through the machine and lugging them out and hanging them on the clothesline. And the goldfinches had better stay in their own part of the yard!

We live in one corner of a three hundred acre bush in a house that we built ourselves when JG took early retirement twelve years ago. Our 'yard' is a series of clearings of about two acres on the south and west sides of the house. It is still a vista of snow and naked trees, even though the calendar has officially announced spring, but some of the spring birds are back, and the year round residents are aware of it. The chickadees have switched from 'chickadee,dee,dee' to 'hey sweetie'. The jays are starting the spring 'doink doink' call that they give with a bob to the lady when they really get going. Later they will doink, bob and present aforesaid lady with a nice seed. If she accepts it, less polite behaviour follows.

We've left an old fence line between two parts of the cleared field and we have a feeding station set up there for the deer. We put out corn and deer ration there and lately have had six or seven regular visitors, all groups of does -- we only see the males in the fall. The does are still in small groups, but the bigger ones are chasing the smaller ones away from the feed, which I believe is a sign of the spring break-up when the gravid does all separate to their own birthing territories. We had one last summer who used the clearing where JG has his sawmill as a nursery.

It is now mid afternoon and the screaming blue of the sky is starting to be painted over with wisps of cirrus cloud -- cirrus fibratus (I have this book). But the sun is still almost hot, and it is melting the snow back like crazy.

We're supposed to have rain this evening. The sap should have run this morning, however. We used to make maple syrup -- did it for over 25 years -- but JG has enough arthritis now that he isn't mobile enough, and I was glad when we stopped as holding up my end of the job was getting harder every year. But on the first sap day of the spring I miss it, miss the bustle as everything gets scrubbed up and ready, miss the drum of the sap coming down the 'lines' and hitting the wall of the gathering tank, miss the scent of the steam. Here's what our operation looked like on a day much like this morning, a few years ago.

The spell checker doesn't do Latin, or bird words. Too bad. I am going to go and splosh in the puddles.