Fooled Ya!

The skunks are out, playing out their stinky amorous dalliances everywhere romantic meal opportunities present themselves: i.e., my compost bin and the trash dumpster on the side of the parking lot outside my office in the Upper Valley – ah, sniff that fresh almost-spring air! – but I haven’t heard the woodcock buzzing yet, so nearly-Spring bussing is still barely underway.  I expect March might prove yet another interesting month, so I’m not putting the boots away soon even though the snow has been steadily melting.

It’s been a strange winter, and the vagaries of bare ground vs. packed-on snow have changed monthly, sometimes weekly, and Catmandude and I have been making ourselves crazy trying to get comfortable with what’s going on out there. He mostly judges his comfort zone by how much bare ground is available to take a dirt bath in between the south wall of the house and the nearest raised-bed wall, and whether he can find some early catnip to nibble along the edges; I, on the other hand, go by how long it’ll be ‘til the parsnips left in the garden to over-winter are visible. I planted last summer’s piddling germination of parsnips in the depths of the garden, for a change, so have no real expectations of true signs of spring before April – though I’m willing to be pleasantly surprised if the weather gods decide to co-operate.  I’ve been fooled before, though – one February in Maine I was seduced by a two-week thaw into planting lettuce seed and radishes in the small plot next to the kitchen door, only to find it all covered by 2 feet of fresh snowfall several days later.

But to thrill the Catman and stave off cabin-fever cat-grumpiness, I brought the folding chairs out of winter storage onto the wart during our recent warm week, and he and his sister spent most of the daylight hours very contentedly curled up in the chairs’ squishy bottoms. Beastreau, who is black as night, takes regular breaks indoors; the lengthening sun heats her up too much and she finds an hourly prowl of the catfood bowls to be advantageous to health and good humor. Catman, however, being camouflage-colored, is quite content for hours and hours, keeping one lazy eye on the bird-lure that I so strategically spread across the wart railings, which makes for cat-entertainment but isn’t enticing enough to roust him out of his happy, sunny chair. Sometimes when I step out onto the wart, there’s a buzzing in the air and I think – Wait! Early bees? – and then I realize, no, just very contented furries.

The barkie boys are finding the compacting snow to be opening up realms of interesting things to smell, and the mud puddles in the driveway have proven equally alluring. No one’s rolled in anything disgusting yet, but there are muddy paw prints everywhere, inside and outside, and I’m never sure what I’m going to put my hand on when I reach down to give a pat. 

Even the Husband has taken advantage of the sun-drenched chairs, and fell asleep in one, briefly, this past warm spell. We didn’t light up the woodstove except to take the chill off at night for a week, and he’s enjoying that the wood he hauled in more than a week earlier is still sufficient unto the need.  “It’s 60 degrees out by the woodstacks!” he’ll announce dizzyingly. “That’s 10 degrees higher than on the wart!” Yup, and the storm gauge is currently quite settled. Nice, but I don’t trust it; those wily weather gods have notoriously warped senses of humor, and they’re just waiting for someone to put their winter coats away, I tell ya.

They aren’t going to fool me; the leg-warmers and boot socks and fuzzy scarf and extra pair of mittens are stashed right here, by my chair. I put them on every so many days, just to stay in shape. The cellar’s cold enough that I enjoy wearing them down there to root around in the freezer for supper possibilities. And when I come back up, arms full of frozen delights, I step out onto the wart for a moment, still wearing them, just so the weather gods can see that I’m serious.

The Husband and his friends may be full of spring sillies, wandering around outside in t-shirts and sneakers, planning to wrest their bikes out of winter storage any day now. That’s fine – it’s all part of the enchantress Spring’s prelude to her love song. And we may be setting our clocks to daylight savings time momentarily; but this is also a test to lure us into unwariness. Personally, I’m sticking with the woodcock and the Parsnip Sighting before I believe Spring’s really on her way.

In the meantime, I’m going back to my book and hot cocoa.

 


(Deb’s hunkered down for the duration.)

Photos by Deb Marshall, 2017

Originally published in the Concord Monitor, March 9, 2017, as “Springing the Trap.”