The water-logged grass
crackled under my feet when I walked down to the shop this morning: oh yes,
winter is still trying to hang on for dear life. Temperatures seem unwilling to
take the leap into the double digits, in fact have lingered around +5 during
the day for quite some time, and night time temperatures
have dropped as low as -8 even during the last few days.
Whenever
we cautiously dare to hope that now, finally, the spell is broken we get
another blast of winter. Strangely, this seems to happen every weekend, as in
this picture taken last Saturday. Winds gusts up to 80 km/h whipped the thin
dense veil of snow into small drifts that tried to attach to the crusty, dirty
snow banks still left from months of winter. For a few hours the just exposed
patches of lawn were once again covered up.
It is a losing battle,
however: gravel roads are bare, and bare spots show up increasingly in fields
and pastures, too. Even with these modest temperatures the melting process is making
steady progress. Geese, too, must think it is time: instead of a couple here
and there we now see the first larger groups flying overhead, long
stretched-out Vs aimed unerringly north or northwest. Every morning and evening
the air is filled with their honking voices, and often I stop and search the
sky when I hear them in the distance, delighted when I watch their approach from behind
the trees, long necks stretched out, wing beat slow and steady. At other times
their passing is so quiet that I can hear the whoosh of their wings when they
are low enough, interrupted only by bits of conversation muttered in their low,
dark voices, talking quietly among each other, like passengers on a night
train.
With more and more
snow converted to melt water lakes in the fields it must have seemed safe
enough for the ducks to return as well. On Sunday I spotted the first metallic
green heads in a crowd of Canada geese: mallards, busily diving in search of
food.
They are not the only
ones who enjoy the open water: Leo, too, loves it and seems oblivious to its
temperature.
When I took this
picture a few days ago I didn’t notice the bald eagle sitting in the neighbour’s
tree on the far right until I looked at it on the computer later; I must have
been too busy watching Leo’s joyful splashing right in front of my nose.
There is one more
April weekend coming up. Will it bring more snow? We would very much appreciate
a stretch of warm, dry weather so that the snow will finally melt completely
and the fields have a chance to dry up. Ideally we would start field work right
now, but it doesn’t seem likely to happen before the 10th of May at
the earliest, probably later. As much as we love our farming life, it is never
free of anxiety and worries about factors we cannot control. Yet every year it
works out somehow. I guess we just have to
follow the example of the geese: stay our course, and trust that we will raise
our crop, just like every year.