Time for spring

By BECKY NELSON
Bramblings
As we head into New Hampshire’s Maple Weekend, I am actually thinking more about planting and springtime and sunshine and flowers than I am about maple.

The maple season is about three quarters of the way through and it will just be a matter of days or a couple of weeks and we will have to pull the plug on the maple operation as buds swell, sap stops flowing and we are out of a job in the sugar woods. Despite the importance of maple and the celebration of the sweet, sticky deliciousness, I am ready for some springtime.

I’m about fed up with winter. I have fallen on the ice too many times, plunged into thigh-high snow in the woods while we check the maple orchard too many times, shoveled too much, roof raked too many times and am just ready for some sunshine, warmth and springtime. Winter is a hard time for the farm receipts, too, so I am ready for business to perk up as folks start to wander out of their homes and seek out some fresh-grown and just-picked goodness.

The calendar turned to spring this week. You sure can’t see much evidence of spring around the farm. We have over a foot of snow in the open fields and even more in the woods. We had to dig a woodpile out of the snow and ice recently to stock up the woodpile at the sugarhouse. We have had to plow out the barn and sugarhouse more times than I would like. The temperatures have been lower than “average” for the current week and is putting a squeeze on personal heating budgets as folks run out of wood, run out of pellets, run out of oil and gas.

Despite the winter blues, we can be thankful that I do not live in an area that has been hit by flooding, tornadoes and severe winter weather that we are not used to. Snow in Washington D.C., hail the size of softballs in Alabama and ice in places that are not prepared for the ravages of winter weather have taxed budgets, caused suffering and at the very least, created all kinds of inconvenience with cancelled flights, cancelled school days and lots of angst.

I have a seed order anticipated to arrive in a couple of days. It will feel good to visit the greenhouse at the Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center, where I will be working with students learning the process of seeding and transplanting and nurturing some fragile greenness while late winter holds on with Yankee tenacity. There is something magical about planting and watching things grow.

We northerners are used to yucky weather and lingering winters, but this one seems exceptionally long and exceptionally annoying. We have had some successful and encouraging sap runs to make maple syrup but the cold weather has even put the brakes on that operation. With below-freezing temperatures day after day, we have been at a standstill. Business has been slow, with folks waiting for warmer weather to wander to the farm store and waiting for the goodness of spring to pop and cheer us, warm us and improve our mental states. We need a few days of sunny warmth to thaw out our psyches and rouse us from our winter lethargy.

Pretty soon, I hope, there will be some melting and some hints of spring. About the time I see the first crocus, the bears will be churning in their nests and wandering out to forage. I will have to be alert to that and pull in my birdfeeders, as this easy source of food will be an attraction the bruins just cannot resist. The birds will be better able to find some wild seeds and some insects at that time, anyway, and there will be fewer visitors at the feeders.

I have been amazed at the number of birds that have frequented my feeders for the last couple of months. Just recently, with the heavy snowfall covering up the remnants of the corn, pumpkin and vegetable crops from the fall, even some turkeys have visited the feeders and had a snack. It is difficult for them to find food when the snow is deep and ice covers whatever they might find to eat. Deer, too, are having a tougher time finding food and there are several patches of snow that have been scuffed up by hooves in the cornfield right in front of the house where the deer have also looked for a cornstalk or a corncob to keep them fed for a little. We are not the only ones sick of winter. Time for spring, Mother Nature!

Becky is co-owner of Beaver Pond Farm in Newport: [email protected]