The sickle moon is looking right into my window as I write
this, but the night, beautiful as it is, does not feel like a spring night yet.
Like the last few nights the temperature will dip a few degrees below freezing,
and if I want to watch the Eta Aquarid meteor shower later I better dress
accordingly.
Not even a week ago we were sitting outside in our shirt
sleeves on the deck watching the sunset, and so easily I was fooled into
believing that it could stay like this. I should know better by now. Lately I have
been reading the letters I wrote to my parents before the telephone largely replaced
this lovely method of communication, and hardly a year went by where our hopes
for a smooth transition to summer weren’t dashed at some point. Still ...
Yet even if tiny snowflakes were drifting down this morning
when I woke up and a thin layer of snow covered the lawn before a feeble sun
made it disappear later there is no denying that the stirrings of spring are
getting stronger. Every trip to the garden brings new discoveries. Things are
coming up: those I welcome and those I would rather not see there. It is always
exciting for me to find the beginnings of a new crop of fresh produce without
having done anything (or should I put that more directly: by doing exactly
nothing) to have this happen. Little delights: here a clump of tiny lettuce
plants, there some darker green (and a bit bigger) spinach seedlings, an
undulating carpet of soft tendrils of dill, a couple of onions I forgot to dig
up. This year for the first time a profusion of round little leaves around
three groups of cut-off dry stems shows that the hollyhock plants, too, did not
invite all those bees and bumble bees in vain last summer. Oh, there is an
enormous amount of work that could be done - or I could just let things run
rampant and be happy about the wilderness. I suspect it will end up being a bit
of both.
The afternoon found us in the garden to continue what I had
started early last week: putting the first seeds in the ground. It might be
cold still, but lettuce and spinach, carrots and radishes, onions, peas, corn
and even potatoes won’t mind that too much. With luck it won’t be long before
they join that brave little troupe of volunteer seedlings, not to mention the
already lush crop of chives and the slowly unfolding rhubarb.
So much for news from the garden – but what about the
beaver? I have spent several evenings sitting on my log, looking out onto the
surface of the water, sometimes still and smooth as a mirror, sometimes
crinkled by tiny wind-driven waves, waiting for the beaver, Leo engaged in his
usual surveillance of the grounds. At times I wondered if it was really still
around, but a few newly felled trees, some freshly chewed bark made me hopeful,
and finally I was rewarded three nights in a row.
The first time I happened to look to my right at the
neighbour’s dugout on the other side of the fence when a dark head surfaced and
the beaver started to do its rounds. When Leo couldn’t contain himself and ran
up and down along the water’s edge it slapped a warning with its tail and
disappeared again, only to re-emerge moments later. Worried that Leo might jump
in after all I called him back and left.
The next evening we arrived at our own
pond with not one, but two beavers enjoying the sunset, though more likely each
other’s company. They were so focused on one another that they didn’t pay any
attention to us, swimming within a couple of metres of where we were standing,
round after round. It could be still mating season for them, according to my
reading, but the peak of the mating time is in January, so maybe the beaver
couple simply was out for an evening stroll.
Once more I found the beaver swimming in the neighbour’s
pond, and this time I had my camera with me. It obliged and stayed afloat long
enough for me to take its picture. Will they stick around to raise their young
here? I hope so!
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