Mud Season.

3-22-22 VERMONT: We arrived in the middle of the worst mud season in years. Many dirt roads, like the one we live on, are deep in mud. Cars are stuck all over the state, towing people are in huge demand, towns are trying to fill mud holes with gravel and having the gravel disappear into the mud. Lots of roads are closed except to residents. The parts of our road that we rely on are usable even if scary. Usually this happens in April. We are leaving tomorrow instead of Saturday because the forecast is for rain, sleet and snow the rest of the week.

April is also when the bears usually wake up, but in our town they are already attacking bird feeders, AKA bear feeders. 

Today is sunny, but in the thirties with a lot of gusty wind. The walk around the pasture was invigorating. Robins are hopping and scurrying around the pasture looking for worms. A small flock of Cedar waxwings were eating viburnum berries. The usual feeder birds are here and joined by bluejays and purple finches. I bring the feeder inside at night because of the bears. 

Almost all the pasture is free of snow and the pasture pond is thawed.  Around the house there’s a lot of snow and ice. Both ponds are still frozen, even if a little soft around the edges. The brook between the ponds is running. The beds around the house under the eaves are deeply covered in snow, but the beds on the gable ends of the house are open. Snowdrops are up, if not quite open. 

New blooms: snowdrops. 

Cedar waxwing in a viburnum eating those berries.

Snowdrops. Originally I brought a handful of the little bulbs up from NJ, and now they are all over the yard beds. A successful transplant.

Frozen pond and snow around the house, different from spring in NJ.

The brook gushing, partly under snow cover.

No ice on the little pasture pond. The pasture faces south and is less shaded then the yard around the house, which faces north, and so gets much less sun. The first settlers did it that way on purpose to maximize the sun on the fields, whether for crops or pasturage.