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WE HAD A MILD WINTER (my friend E.Ch. says we’re winning the Climate Change Lottery up here in what used to be the frozen north), so starting March with a sunny, warm day didn’t have quite the impact that it might have had in other years. Still, when you hear the woodpeckers rapping on tree trunks (which they do in an effort to impress a possible mate) and the snow is squooshing rather than crunching under your boots, you get that “everything is waking up” feeling anyway.
I wish spring came with a snooze button. I confess to having mixed feelings about the season. As joyful as it is to see all that stirring and greening and sprouting and mating and assorted carryings on, there is also a lot of work to be done when spring is here. There is a great temptation to roll over, pull the covers up, and get another month of winter.
But stretch, yawn, scratch. It’s too early to plant yet, but I am already thinking about whether to buy non-native perennials by mail, which is the easy thing to do, or schedule a road trip to visit a native plant nursery, which is what I should do. Where is John-Henry Pfifferling when I need him? (He used to say, “Flora, relax your should-ers.”)
I’m also planning to get into tree planting in a bigger way this year. I’m looking for hybrid poplars, which I plan to plant in my 50 acres of abandoned fields. (The idea is to supply my own firewood without having to do any cutting in the real forest.) I need big ones, at least 3 feet, because if I plant small ones the deer will eat them. I want to buy them bare root (not growing in a pot) because they weigh a lot less that way and are easier to plant.
Then there are a couple of big questions to be answered: Am I really going to buy those two baby goats my friend Joe has lined up for me? (Yes, I did say that I was dying to own goats. But how was I supposed to know he’d believe me?) And how big a vegetable garden should I have this year? (The freezer still seems to be ¾ full of LAST year’s bounty.)
Feet on floor. Don't step on the dog on the way to the bathroom. With a last, lingering look at my warm winter bed, I head into spring.
