Much of our week at the farm was spent outdoors, prepping for summer. Only half a day was spent inside as we boiled the last surprise run of sap. The season was “average” for us, though we boiled fewer days than last year. The up and down of temperatures was pretty wild this year, with the ideal days for sap flow a scarcity. We can’t really rely on the traditional six weeks of sap weather of March through a couple weeks of April that we had a few decades ago, so we try to be ready by Valentine’s Day and anticipate an earlier close to the season. It is nice to put the process to bed for another year, though we still have several days in the woods to go as we need to untap trees and clean sap lines.
As the buds swell and blossom on the maple trees in late “stick season” as they are now, is a beautiful time to be in the woods. I haven’t made it out there yet, however, as we took a couple of days to tackle invasives that are lining the roadways and the edges of pastures. We try to cut everything down that we can early, before the leaves make the task harder to accomplish. We cut out a lot of Autumn Olive, Glossy Buckthorn and Multiflora Rose, all tangled together in spiky thickets. It is much easier to get to the base of the plants in stick season, though the thorns and stickers of a couple of the species make it a difficult task to cut them out in any season.
While I was tackling a particularly nasty thicket of multiflora rose, I saw a peek of blue color in the middle. It was a bird nest tucked in amidst the thorns and stems in what would have been a perfect hiding spot for the bird family when the leaves and blossoms camouflaged the little nest. The bit of blue was a strand of plastic from a tarp, and the opportunistic little bird had picked up our plastic garbage and wrapped it into its nest. I can only imagine the amount of work required for this intricate building job the little bird had accomplished, weaving sticks, grass and plastic strands into its nest inside this thorn thicket.
We have other opportunistic critters in the neighborhood, too. The deer have been grazing in the hay fields and on the edges of the vegetable fields. Ticks are waking up and looking for an opportunity to find a meal. Birds have been taking advantage of snow-free ground and have been hunting grubs and seeds. Ducks and geese have been coming back to the pond, taking advantage of ice-free water. It looks like the woodchuck who lives under our screen room has ventured out a couple of times already.
Birds and wild creatures amaze me in their ability to adapt and their opportunistic shifts to find food where it can be found, find shelter wherever they can and raise their young with the elements and predators attacking them at all times. We may feel a bit like this as political decisions attack our values, our person, our wallets, our feelings of security and opportunity. It is a very uncomfortable time for many of us as tariffs cause prices to rise and hurt us in the wallet, those of us relying on exporting our agricultural products see foreign buyers seek other suppliers, people we know of are detained as their visa or legal status and their lives and livelihoods in our communities are questioned, services we relied upon in our daily lives are curtailed or limited, and women’s rights to control their own bodies are clipped and abolished. We are entering unknown territory, and like the little bird with the nest in the brambles, we need to learn to adapt to the times and change our tactics, be prepared to ward off predators who threaten us, be opportunistic in finding safety in the brambles and stay alert to the threats that lie outside our comfy little nests.
