THE MARCH OF WINTER, OR THE WINTER OF MARCH

 

February 24, 2024, just passing the time.

Is this the way it's going to be?  Winter as March, followed by more March, and then actual March? 

A mere three days ago it was 3 degrees.  This week it will be nearly 60 degrees.  I wrote this when it was still February. 

Now it's actually March.  We're already acclimatized.

December 18, 2023,,  Looks like March snowmelt.

The pond has flooded, frozen, flooded again, frozen, thawed, frozen.   The fields are completely empty of snow.  The woods too.  Fortunately for the mice and other little creatures, the weather was too wet to mow last summer because I didn't want it mowed until the bobolinks had left their nests.  By then it was too late.  The summer of rain had begun,  Not mowing left acres of really tall grasses.  All that grass turned into hummocks piled up like miniature thatched huts.  From a mouse point of view, that is. Normally at this time of year – whatever "normally" means anymore – pathways of small creatures are only visible after the snow has melted.  Now you only see these tiny roads when they run across the field paths that I always keep mown.

Lucky mice, lacking snow, but not fortunately not cover.

Looking for snow this winter reminds me of when we lived in Massachusetts and regularly made day trips to the White Mountains in New Hampshire to ski, either downhill or cross-country, often on the kind of days when there was little or no snow at home in Lexington.  On rare occasions we might head to western Mass, but if the local snow wasn't worth much, north to the Whites was the only direction to go.  

Once again I go to the mountains to find the snow. 

 

February 4, 2024, Where the Long Trail crosses Rte 125

February 25, 2024, Wilkinson Trail Network, Moosalamoo

Melting ice on the stream, Moosalamoo

Looks are deceiving.  The hoar frost of February 4 was a temporary phenomenon.  The snow was pretty good for skiing that day, I heard.  Not great, you know, but pretty good.  At first glance, nothing looks wrong about the ski trails in the photograph.  It's the footprints that are out of place.  There are no ski tracks.  In fact, if you attempted to ski this, or any of the other trails in this area on February 25, or probably on any other day in February, you could be risking your life:  alluring downhills were unforgiving, crossed every twenty yards or so by ditches 3 or 4 feet deep that might otherwise be filled with snow but instead had mud and ice, rocks likely lying in wait at the bottom, disguised by a mere inch or so or snow.  Lovely, though, for a walk.

Not that good skiing is impossible.  It's just that where it usually is, it isn't.  You have to go find it.  

And then there's the wind.  Did we always think about wind?  When your house is surrounded by old tall trees as ours was in Massachusetts and it gets really windy one day you may think absently about limbs breaking, considering the possibilities.  The weaknesses of those big old trees are often hidden, hence unpredictable.  But still, it's not usually the first thought that enters your mind.  The wind's never really all that bad.   So I never thought much about wind.  Really crazy wild wind, blowdowns, they happened in the high mountains, tornadoes, they happened elsewhere.   The only time we ever came close to experiencing one of those was when a tornado siren started up just as we were driving into Little Rock, Arkansas, precisely at this time of year.  That tornado spun itself out elsewhere so I never did share that unlucky experience.  The friends we were visiting told us tales of tornadoes they'd been through.  One nightour friend's grandfather was blown clear out of his house, bed and all, and deposited intact on the lawn, still in bed.  There has been plenty of wind this, um, "winter" – all those clashes between warm and cold temperatures moving the air around – and scary gusts.  In the mountains a few miles to the east, in the town of Lincoln, an 80-plus wind speed was recorded on the day of the first major windstorm, and a speed of almost 90 in the second windtorm lthat rolled in about a week later.  Sobering that was. 

This year's sugaring will be, well, I don't know.  Sap started flowing in the warmth of December, and probably has been flowing off and on in these mixed temperatures pretty much ever since then.  I'd heard about a guy with a commercial sap business who had tapped about 20,000 trees in December and had 400 gallons of syrup before it was even January.  Other syrup businesses probably did the same.  Here, in my little sugar shack, everything is ready to go, and time's a'wasting.  The family members who do the sugaring are out of town.  Out of town in pursuit of snow, incidentally.  (Finland)  Maybe the weather will stabilize in the next week and the taps can still be set, the sap will still be running, and the weather will settle into a helpful pattern of warmish days and chill nights.  What are the odds?

I just saw a red-winged blackbird.  I've never spotted one this early in the season.  

Wood is stacked and ready.  

Only one jar left!

These are only small things though –– no snow, weird sugaring seasons, pond freezing and thawing, wind, but no damage here. Minor complaints.  Or maybe not. 

And now, of course, it's actually March, the real calendar month of.  Can summer be far behind?