SPRING IS BUSTIN OUT ALL OVER (to re-purpose a phrase)

APRIL 14th

My parka is unzipped.

Snow seeps into a roaring brook.

I walk through a melting forest. 

Dearest Readers,

New vegetation along my walk route is still in hiding, tree leaves have not appeared, but I saw a patch of mossy green sprigs in a melted section of icepack along the Cowhill snowmobile trail near me on Tuesday. 

The dark forest still holds areas of ice and snow on these shaded forest snowmobile paths, but the landscape is changing fast. 

Snow recedes from thatch-y yellow lawns. 

Dirt roads are drying out. Pesky grimy snowbanks still remain.

Corn stalk stubs poke through the thin white remnant of 59 snowfalls.  

Birds arrive daily to join the hardy chickadees, crabby crows, nuthatches and woodpeckers who braved this unusually long, deep winter. I’ve seen gray jays, Canada geese, robins, junco, wild turkey and heard the trill of a phoebe. Winter is quiet, but spring here in Peacham VT is a-twitter with nest building, food gathering and a general sense of nature’s busy housework in preparation for the fulsomeness of summer. 

As I climbed higher up that snowmobile trail on Tuesday, I heard a raging stream filling the air like the din of Atlanta’s I-285 perimeter highway. It was racing to the Connecticut River and then to the sea---it’s destiny.

  

The sun is glorious and blinding–my touch of S.A.D. melting as well. 

The Peacham Library’s mug and donut snow sculpture passes into oblivion. I will continue to document it collapsing into the ground. 

This is Before

This is Now.

My early spring ikebana arrangement with red osier dogwood sticks decided to join the fray and popped out some unseen green buds with only water in a basin for nourishment. 

I am so joyful today!