New Snow, Now It's Gone.

2-20-18 SHORT HILLS: After tomorrow, there’s only one month until the Vernal Equinox. We had six inches of heavy, wet snow over the weekend, but two warm days have made it disappear. The snow did break some branches, and I have done some clean up and pruning.

At this point in the season, I am much less enthused by the white, wonderland produced by a new snowfall than I was in December. The ground is getting muddy as it thaws. Buds on the shrubs are starting to swell and show green on their tips. We have been able to walk the dogs most every day.

Something, squirrels or possibly raccoons, have been knocking the feeders down at night. I have tried to make them more secure and more secure after each incursion, and have added a new dome to hang above one feeder. The birds are so polite, eating seeds one at a time, but those mammals are wily and greedy, and they eat so much more than the birds. Does that sound disloyal to my taxonomic classmates?


Six inches of new soft-as-down snow.

"Look, Gus, there's grass under the snow!"

" Yeah, you're right, Maizie. Imagine that, and dirt under the grass. "