April Showers

April did not disappoint this year in the showers department. I was driving to the grocery store one morning during week 3, listening to the radio, and the weather forecast was “rain today, rain tomorrow, and so on…” Now let me acknowledge that our two-week April deluge was nothing like what submerged other parts of the country, but we New Englanders like to complain, and we’re good at it! My favorite part of prolonged rain is the sound of water everywhere. At our little house the woods came alive with streams flowing down from the mountain, and all over town rivers rushed and waterfalls roared. That’s Beede’s Falls above, and here are some more highlights…

Once the rain stopped it was go time! The grass greened up seemingly overnight and buds on tree branches swelled and burst into lacy leaf, ending the “stick season,” as my niece describes the stark bareness between late fall and spring. Fiddlehead ferns and coleus unfurled, daffodils and cheery little violets popped up, and early blooming azaleas brightened our hillside. We’re allowing dandelions to bloom during “no mow May,” much to the satisfaction of bees. (I tried to get a photo of bees on the dandelions, but they didn’t show up for the photo shoot. Typical.)

Songbirds have returned. That’s a nuthatch on the feeder below (they like to eat upside down), and yesterday I saw my first indigo bunting of the year in all its iridescent blue splendor. (Okay, so I didn’t take that Audubon photo, but the bunting at my feeder looked exactly like that one!) There has been action at a few of our birdhouses, and chipmunks have emerged from their winter burrows, much to the delight of Rosie who is endlessly entertained by chasing them into the cracks in stone walls. Bears are out and about as well. When I heard a sound that I assumed was a squirrel on the bird feeder, I was startled (to say the least) to see a bear at our window. Our neighbors got a photo of the bear trying unsuccessfully to disappear into a tree. The bears aren’t wiley yet, still a bit disoriented from hibernation.

Around the farm, Steve is busy rebuilding a greenhouse and spreading compost on the fields. I’m looking forward to June strawberry season and the lure of sweet corn in the heat of summer. Happy spring everyone!