Is It Spring Yet?

3-12-14 SHORT HILLS: Three days of skiing were great. That last day it was warm, and the Dartmouth Skiway had more cars in the parking lots than I had ever seen there, but the lift lines were minimal.

The warm days were enough to get the neighbors out in the pasture and out on the road hanging sap buckets on the maple trees.
Sweetness begins.

Back in NJ the snow has been slowly retreating in the face of warm days and warm nights. Today it started raining which accelerates the melting, but tonight it gets cold again, and we get a little new snow. Vermont gets as much as a foot of new snow, but only a dusting is predicted for NJ.

While Spring is officially more than a week away, I consider it begun—we have snowdrops up! Never before have I been so glad to see the first flower.

New blooms: snowdrop.


The maple sap buckets are out. That yellow thing is a 'posted' sign.

Buckets distributors at work.

Here's that Red-wing Blackbird, an immature and/or female, showing no red and little black.

Ta-Da! Snowdrops.