It's April!

A new birdhouse; and snow. Deb Marshall photo

 It’s April! And we seem to have weathered the full moon and April Fool’s Day with nothing worse happening than what’s been happening all along the past year-plus – no one believes anything anyone says unless it’s inflammatory, we don’t trust anyone and can’t tell who’s trustworthy,  we’re loathe to give even our own folks the benefit of the doubt, we’re all incredibly grumpy, the energy’s bad pretty much everywhere, the full moon made everyone crazier and crankier than ever, and we’re all afraid – mostly of partially-imagined bogey men but also that our world could suddenly end or change radically, in a really bad way, with an ill-advised tweet – and boy, do I miss the days when a friend and I regularly intoned, as a joke, “It’s all Obama’s fault.” 

One of our biggest problems is that when we somehow got stuck with the current regime, the idiot-in-power still insists it’s all Obama’s fault. 

And yet, there are signs of good stuff, or at least better stuff happening, at least in my small world. The Actress and her husband are back from their winter’s long trek down south, the Tall Dude is back from his equally long ski trek out west, and the Guy With The Accent showed up unexpectedly for supper about a week ago. We hadn’t seen him for more than a year, maybe two – he’s been traveling the country, with some quick European trips, for his job, which puts him in touch with farmers on both sides of the Pond. His observations are pretty interesting, but he’s kind of homeless at the moment, rarely getting a chance to get back to his old digs on our western border. 

Out in my yard, the snow suddenly mostly left my garden this past weekend, though there’s still plenty of it in the field beyond. One brave crocus has bloomed next to the raised bed closest the house, and some jonquils are starting to pop out next to it; Mom has a bunch of stuff up and growing in her protected back yard next to the back wall. The birds are starting to ignore most of the seed I’ve been putting out (and removing at night, sorry, Bear!) and there are at least four woodcocks peeting away under the bright moon on our little island – one in my field, one across the street near the marsh, a third two neighbors down next to their pond, and a fourth that seems to be either in our corner field or in the field across the street – it’s hard to tell, there’s an echo  in that area, so maybe there are two. I’ve heard their whistling flight a few times during the last few nights.

A view down the fence line - and more snow. Deb Marshall photo

Abu and I have finally been able to walk down the driveway without losing my boots into the endless sucking mud, so we’ve had a few moonlight walks lately. Old as he is, he’s always ready for a stroll, but he prefers the night-time adventures – apparently there’s better sniffing at night. 

We headed out into the garden for the first time today, eager to dig up the over-wintered parsnips. Over-wintered parsnips are an eagerly-awaited spring treat – they turn sweet and incredibly delicious after being frozen into the ground for several months. So out I went, hand-trowel in hand, basket on arm, and found --- nothing! Well, nothing but a whole lot of underground tunnels and a few sprouting greens attached to a quarter-inch of parsnip that had been neatly snipped off down below. Some critter – maybe chipmunks, maybe mice, maybe both – apparently had a fine winter feasting on my parsnips!

All one can say is, Oh, Well. Actually, I had a lot more than that to say about it, but mostly cusswords, so fill in the blanks for yourself. 

I decided to hang out the two new bird houses I got for Christmas since it was a fine day today. One’s attached to the side of the arch where a different house was last year, the other is  three fenceposts down, setting on top of the post and attached to the wire fence that runs up it. I’ll try to surround both with vines this summer, to give the birds some shade and privacy. I also hung the onion bag into which I’ve been collecting hair from my hairbrush and cat and dog fur from their brushings for the last couple of years; it amuses me to think that some lucky eggs will be nestled into a cozy nest lined with cat fur.

New birdhouse on a fence post; and yes, snow. Deb Marshall photo

Hard to believe with the temperatures still as chilly as they are, and snow predicted overnight, but when I lifted the base of the bird bath from its winter prone position this afternoon, what did I find but a slug! And somehow, that’s a fitting commentary on the state of the larger world, as well as my small world – there are some creepy, slimy things that managed to survive the winter and that have emerged early to cause as much mayhem as possible. 

Sigh. Slugs can be unhinged with beer; I wonder if that would work on the other slimy things in our world?

The brave crocus; Deb Marshall photo

For the blog alone; 2 April 2018