Spring

I have been absent from the blogs for some time trying to catch up on the things I fell behind with during my cabin fever time. As soon as I got busy, what happened? Spring. Early spring is a subtle thing in the north country. Almost every bit of ground is still generously covered with snow. Last week we had night time lows of zero or below. This morning at 5 a.m. our temp was only 2 degrees. But still we know that winter has passed away. For one thing the quality of the snow is very different, It's airy, icy, rotten if snow can be such a thing. Back here in the woods it's still very white and clean, but it's sinking and pulling back from the edges of things. It can't hold on because our days are getting so much longer and the sun is higher and stronger. Even if the temperature stays below 32 degrees, ice melts and comes sliding off our metal roof in big chunks. The pine grosbeaks who only visit our feeders in winter have left. The Warroad Pioneer says that the crows are back, though I haven't seen or heard one yet. A really neat bird, the pileated woodpecker, lives here year round, but we have usually seen them in our yard in spring. One has been coming to our suet feeder everyday this week. If Bears sees it, she chases it away. I thought that might keep it from coming back. They seem to be very wary creatures. But this one must really love suet. They are huge for woodpeckers--sixteen plus inches. Their bodies are black. Their head is a sharp, narrow triangle with wide white stripes. On top they have a brilliant red wedge cap. Ravens are circling our yard more than usual. This may be a macbre sign of spring too. Perhaps the snow has started to melt away from the corpse of poor Black, the goat, which was hauled into the woods behind our house last fall.