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| Not quite yet |
Spring seems to be on its way a little earlier than the last couple
of years. Even though we came home from our trip to Arizona and
California to a once again snowy landscape and have had one more big snowfall
about ten days ago the fields are now pretty much bare. Only where the sun can’t
reach easily – on the north side of buildings and trees, in some of the ditches
– a few crusty remnants of dirty-looking snow are hanging on, but they, too,
will soon be gone if these temperatures continue. At eighteen degrees Celsius
yesterday and the day before spring seems to be a real possibility.
Yet we are careful with our predictions when we will be able to start with our field work. So many years we made tentative plans: April 22? April 25?, only to see
them thwarted by another huge dump of snow, followed by three inches of rain.
Maybe, however, this will finally be a year again where we can start before May
1. It certainly is drying much quicker than we expected where the snow is gone.
It is time to prepare for things to come. As every spring we
need to walk around the perimeter of all the fields to remove trees that have
fallen during the winter months. Armed with chainsaw (Johann) and work gloves
we slowly make our way around the field. Depending on the strength of the
storms there can be a lot of work involved. Many of the poplars along the fence
lines are getting old and sick, and the wind can wreak havoc. Last year was
especially bad, and it took a long time to saw these dead giants into
manageable pieces that could be pulled to the side, out of the reach of
machinery. Old, dead branches shatter into a thousand little pieces, sometimes
twenty meters into the field, chunks of bark littered the ground around the
trunks. We have only just begun this year’s work, but so far it looks as if the
trees have fared better than last winter.
Even though it takes a lot of time it is enjoyable work,
especially in the sunshine. Fuzzy poplar catkins backlit by the sun, slowly
starting activity on the ant hills along the way, chickadees calling back and
forth, the bark of poplar saplings shredded by deer bucks trying to get rid of their velvet – the earth is awakening after its long winter rest.
Geese have been
flying north for weeks now, and most of them seem to be through. Now it is time
for swans. Long necks stretched out, black feet trailing, huge white bodies
gleaming in the sun they are a beautiful sight. Yesterday a small group of them
had teamed up with about six Canada geese, part of the V-formation as if it was
the most natural thing in the world. How do they communicate, I wonder? Do they speak the same language?
The garden, too, is showing signs of life. As always, I keep
checking anxiously what made it through the winter and what fell prey to bitter
cold or suffocated under the snow. Faithful chives are among the first things
that start to grow, ready to send up their purplish tips as soon as the snow is
starting to melt. I can’t say for sure yet if the parsley survived, but the
lemon balm did once again. Already the tiny serrated leaves are starting to
unfold. Tulips are out, and I can almost mark their progress from day to day,
while tiny scillas are already in bloom, their white and blue striped blossoms
only a few centimeters above the ground.
I’ve been engaged in one of my favourite spring activities:
pruning apple and sour cherry trees. The slow work of deciding which branches
to leave, which to snip off, how much of the new growth to remove, stepping
back and surveying the progress from time to time – it’s is such calming, soothing work. Many years ago I
took a pruning course at the Devonian Botanic Garden, but it still feels a bit
like trial and error. Since our fruit harvests have been abundant these last
years I might be doing it right anyway – unless it happens in spite of my
efforts.
This year my poor trees had more to contend with than I would have
wished for them: bark chewed off by porcupines, branches gnawed on by rabbits,
and two of the apple tree trunks severely punctuated by my eternal foe, the
yellow-bellied sapsucker. I hadn’t even noticed the damage during the growing
season; grass growing high around the base of the trunk plus the dense foliage
must have hidden it from view. I hope this won’t be the death blow for the
apple trees. I’m less worried about the cherries: ever more gnarly as time goes
on they seem to be able to withstand much abuse and still produce their crop of
bright red, tart cherries.
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| Evening walk with Maya, her Morgan gelding Romeo and Leo |
