Aside from the birds,

everything has changed here at the tree farm since my last visit two
weeks ago. The snow has melted.....all of it. Where there was an
unbroken, except for multitudes of animal tracks, undulating sheet of
white, there is now an ever shifting landscape of various browns as a
brisk March breeze blows last autumn's leaves about the forest floor.
Where the trees looked mostly black, except for the paper birch and
the young aspens (of course) in contrast with the brilliant white of
the sunlit snow, they now show infinite grades of grays and browns.

Pines and spruces, somber throughout most of the year in their limited
pallete of dark greens, show almost bright and gay by the lack of
competition in the early spring light, but they won't bask in their
glory for long. The pussy willows and some of the silver maples were
already in full flower a week ago and the sugar maple right outside
the window here is showing a flush of rusty red.

Back home (a mere hundred and fifty miles to the southeast, as the
crane flies), spring's imminent arrival was announced a couple of
weeks ago, as usual, by its first annual harbinger, the returning red-
winged blackbirds, followed almost immediately by the killdeer and
sandhill cranes. This year, an unusually warm March resulted in early
ice out on the lakes and streams, which in turn brought about an early
departure of the throngs of diving ducks along the lake Michigan shore
and an early arrival of vast numbers of ring-necked ducks, shovellers,
and common mergansers. Meadowlarks are already singing in the
grasslands and the tree sparrows are becoming scarce. Woodcocks are
back and already peenting. More to follow.....soon.

Crocuses are up all over the place, and the other common and popular
bulbs are sending up shoots in yards and along driveways wherever the
sunlight penetrates and there is even minimal protection from the
wind. I haven't been out to look for them yet, but experience tells
me that the marsh marigolds and skunk cabbage have already poked their
heads up through the leaf litter for a first look around.

Soon.....very soon.....it will be the time of the spring beauties, and
then the trout lillies and the dutchman's breeches and the
bloodroot.....and then the redbuds and the forsythias and the
magnolias.....

giles
things could be worse.