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April 13th, Mud season is certainly here, dirty white patches of snow are left only in the shaded edges of the pastures and where it was piled.  With thawing of the ground, the risk of any significant basement flooding has receded.

A turning point, the rains of last night have convinced the planet to release my sculpture.  I’ve been going out every day and got part of it to wiggle, but until today the base was firmly frozen in.  Today, all that changed.  With a mighty heave,  I managed to get it up and dragged it a few feet from its internment.  I don’t remember how I ever got it out of my car (a long-ago car) and to its initial placement, but I know I won’t eschew help getting it on and off a truck.

I don’t exactly remember Nathan Nicols’ name for it.  He was in a long code violation dispute with the town about selling his sculptures from his home and the name was from something they accused him of committing.

In Maine, Easter is a herald of what is to come, in southern New England, it is a recognition of the presence of “that Aprille with his shoures soote” as Geoff Chaucer mentioned.
I remember attending a Sunrise Service on more than one Easter with my family atop East Rock.  There is something magic about dawn, and sharing a dawn with others.  My family will gather to share a meal, those who can, if not atop East Rock, then in its environs.  From what I can tell from Wunderground, there was no visible sunrise today anyway, so they could sleep in. Happy Holiday to all who worship, and all who are family.

The turkeys travel through twice a day, heading north, probably to the dairy farm next door where corn grew in recent months but also they range through the woods. In the evenings they head back to my place to spend the night. Coming in from the north they run to the bird feeder and glean what sunflower seeds may have fallen whole from the feeder, then some will go out to the apple tree in the south pasture, then off they go to roost in trees at the edges of my pasture. Amazingly invisible even in deciduous trees in winter. Oh sure, you see them, but you mostly only see them once they move. Big birds with an incredible invisibility shield.
This is the season for mating, I don’t often get a front row seat in the soap opera that is turkey sex, but the early evening migration gave me an idea of how complicated it can be.
I made a great video, but at 2 min it’s too large to put in here so more education on my part is needed to figure out how to share videos and to answer the currently unanswered question, how large is too large? And how long it that anyway in video terms?

I got the front garden raked, earlier than usual.  Nothing peeking above ground yet, the ground is thawing but only just.  I keep thinking about the daffodils showing an inch or two of green leaves when I was in Oregon last Jan, but here and now, they still are safely tucked underground.  Temps for the next 48 hours will be just at freezing, then a few days of freezing nights, then we finally creep above freezing.  Hopefully for a while.

We are expecting 3-5” of snow and it was snowing when I woke up.  It was about 4″ by noon. Tomorrow another 1-3” is predicted.  Maine State Govt. just closed the House and Sent Sessions for tomorrow due to snow. I called my landscaper, Warren to ask him not to plow, the biggest problem is that the ground is melted enough that he can’t help but dig it all up and given we are getting another 1-3″ tomorrow and if need be, he can plow then. I can’t see paying twice to clear snow that will be gone in 2-3 days anyway.

I ran into a woman at Hussey’s (“The largest general store in Maine.”  “If we ain’t got it, you don’t need it.” and “guns, wedding gowns and beer.”) who commented on her (now proven false) believe that spring had finally started and we ended up in a 5 min conversation about Oregon!

I’ve been wandering around in several of the public gardens in Portland OR this morning, what a feast for the senses.  I needed that, while outside the snow is so heavy, it’s had to see distances. And all the while I was feeling snug and warm, in front of my wood stove, a cup of tea at my side.  An exquisite Japanese Garden, the finest, they say, outside of Japan.  They have a tea house, but I don’t know if they present tea ceremonies.  It was started with the idea of building American Japanese relationships in the 60s, part of a movement across the country of such gardens, the idea being we could share the culture without knowing the language. One cool note, a man who spent 4 years working on the garden in the 60s. He had a miserable time and was verbally and physically assaulted the entire time by people because he was Japanese. When he left he vowed he would never return. Sad huh?
But 50 years later he attended the opening of an exhibit there and discovered how much the garden was appreciated and felt “healed.”
I won’t go on now, but I can’t wait to visit them all, and take pictures of all these places for the blog. 
There is The Lan Su Chinese Garden, everything in there is from China.  All those gardens are required to have 5 aspects, stone, water, plants, poetry and architecture (if I remember right) and I do find myself disappointed with the writing on rocks.  I wish the poetry could be expressed in some more natural form.  Still, it’s magnificent.  Then there is a International Rose Test Garden, and an Arboretum and a Portland Garden.  I won’t go on now, but I can’t wait to visit them all, and take pictures of all these places for the blog

The turkeys are also about, and snow or no snow, the males and females are hanging together. These pics were taken a few years ago when they were spending time near the house and I could shoot through the window, hence the limited quality. I am always so impressed with the shining glory of turkeys in the sun. Burnished metals of all sorts, copper, brass, bronze with greens and blue iridescence as well.

Taken through screening, a couple of young males doing no better than their older brothers. I always wonder when the males get a chance to eat during these weeks, which is all the females seem to do. They will put down their plumage and nibble a bit, but the drive to puff up and show off, is too strong to let them get more than a swallow or two. You can tell these are young males because they both have central tail feathers that are longer than the rest of them.

Heads are turning blue.

Same thing, but this one doesn’t change colors. I read dating advice in the Sunday paper and the one thing I keep reading over and over again is, guys, when you want to attract females, keep your clothes on. Maybe they should disseminate pictures of how excited the female turkeys get with such displays.

I will say I finally did see one pair of turkeys couple last year. She plopped to the ground and he walked over, kneaded her back until he got a good footing, sat down and after a moment, got off and walked away, as did she, after shaking her feathers back in place. You just can’t beat the romance of such an act.

There’s a late 12 inch April icicle handing at the bird feeder which a chickadee was clinging to for a few seconds. I’ve never seen a bird clinging to an icicle.  They do make lovely icicles around here.  There is often a warm spell going into or out of a snow storm in Maine.  Last night the snow ended with light rain and icicles abound.  I failed to replace part of the roof of the feeder and it hangs above the feeder making a lovely frame for some of the visitors.

The robins are looking particularly disgruntled, they had really been enjoying a return to their summertime meat diet rather than those darn sour sumac berries which is where they spent today.  A snow day for worms.  Rejoice in your reprieve all you northern worms!  I will be grateful for wormfolk today. 

I saw a particularly vivid yellow goldfinch and reaching for the phone to take a picture, I frightened the whole flock away but I’m hopeful that they will check in again.  I was grateful for the bird, for it’s color and for having a flock of finches which is an entertaining cheerful thing.

I’m grateful for the treat of watching a crow take a sauna, well a crowish sauna.  I have a small rivulet of melting snow running down the hill that attracts the birds.  One crow after bathing in it, stepped up into the snow, spread its wings and took another snow bath as if drying off.  Then a short period of preening each feather back in place and that bird was strutting it’s stuff!

I’m grateful the goldfinches are here, although not that many.  The males are mostly still blotchy, even their bills which change color in spring from brown/black to orange.  That’s the same change the females go through although they keep their plumage.

I’m grateful this late snow isn’t late enough to bother any tender buds since we don’t have any buds yet, tender or otherwise. 

I’m grateful either that I remembered to cut back the forsythia after it went dormant and throw it on the ground last fall so my landscaper didn’t get his truck scratched.  I’m grateful I found some flower branches sticking out of the plowed snow a week or two ago and brought them in and vased ‘em.  I really wasn’t sure if they’d bloom since they sure did look dried out but they’ve needed more water every day.  Yesterday I had 2 blooms and today, several.  

Here comes the sun, and I say, 

IT’S ALRIGHT!

One of my top 10 songs.

I’ve started collecting music from my nearest neighbors. This is a nice recording of backyard birds with a loud cardinal, a rooster, my clock and some unidentifiable machinery

And this is a short clip of mostly chickadees, robins and a red winged blackbird. It’s hard to hear the start of the three blackbird calls, but it starts with a lower plunking sound then that “conker geeeee” with the last drawn out.

I am truly excited about finding an auctioneer who will sell my stuff for me instead of having to sell them all myself. Goodby Nordic Track, goodby snow shoes and poles, farewell fireplace tools and gas generator. And this guy, Ed, will get as much money as he can for my things! He’s my new BFF.

And last, a minute of coyote recorded last August, I expect they will be less frequent in Oregon.

6-10″ of snow predicted for the next 2 days.

sigh

Great commotion of birds, there is a pair of red-tailed hawks hanging around, although today is the first time I was sure there were two when I could hear their voices together.  They were screeching like crazy, yelling back at the crows that were mobbing them.  The crows were shrieking back and circling around.  The whole tangle of birds moved from east to west, past my house.  The jays let loose with their alarm calls as did the small birds and with a woosh, the bird feeders was left empty, swinging in a silent yard.  I stepped out my door to search the skys and could see small birds sitting is the branches of trees all around me waiting for the big guys to finish the battle or at least move it farther away.  The hawks could only fly short distances and low and moved in short hops being inexorably herded east.  Long after they were out of view, I could hear the crows harassing and haranguing as they circled and kept pushing the hawks west. This is an audio clip I took.

This is from Cornell, a mobbing picture I like:

https://ww.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/media-browser/60384781

I took the opportunity while the crows were distracted, to throw out some peanuts for such stalwart defenders, my avian sheepdogs.  Another great reason for attracting crows.  My favorite reason though, is to listen to the summertime play of young crows, they are trying out their calls and playing, I’ve watched them have a tug of war over sticks and literally wrestle, with one on it’s back beneath the other, squawking and jostling. They arrive as a family, adults, year old juveniles and the rambunctious, shouting, playful, kids.

SUDDEN SWERVE: So there is this covenant on the cottage, that it can’t be used for commercial reasons.  What I don’t know is if that applies to an individual fisherman using his own boat at his own dock at his (OR her) own home should a fisherman want to buy my place. Anyway I asked Dean, my realtor, if the potential buyer was aware, and he said he’d sent the covenant to the guy’s realtor and assumed he told the fisherman. 

So I don’t know on that point.

I got the new septic design, it’s a water treatment plant really, no leach field needed, so it’s much smaller, hopefully cheaper and certainly less difficult to put in.  I took it to the code officer and he’s already said he likes these systems.  Apparently, the waste water they produce is actually potable.  I know, everybody but Anne winces at the idea!

Next is to get a couple of bids.  I had gotten an earlier septic plan but it called for a 4 ft. high mound right behind the cottage which is the only direction it could be expanded, it required cutting down the pines in back, the only 2 shade trees on the property, and would have meant I would need a new well.

So, we had an estimate of what all that would cost.  Not only will this be a much smaller installation, but it goes toward the front, no mound and all trees spared, as well as the well so the cost should be lower, hot diggity. 

The realtor said the main objection to the cottage that people have, other than the ones who want to build a big house there, is the missing septic and even with an allowance to replace it, they don’t want the bother of putting it in, can’t blame them, so looks like I do it.  The cost will be the kind of money I didn’t think I’d need until after the cottage was sold.  Doable but painful.  I figure the sooner I do it, the faster it might sell, so I’m hoping to get going on it soon.  I consolidated my mortgages a couple of years ago so once I sell the cottage, I’ll only have one mortgage payment since my house is paid off.

enough sewer talk.

Today is a woodpecker day, large and small.  The smallest ones I usually see are the downy woodpeckers and today I saw my first, since I put up the feeders last month.  That was about 15 min after I saw my first pileated woodpecker of the year.   The hairy one came a day later.
This has been a place the large pileated ones return to each year, mostly I see them in a small piece of wooded brush between the driveway and my northern boundary, where the woodcocks hang out, but I see them all over.  I’m including two pix I took of a courting couple of them from some years back.   Unlike the female turkeys who just graze as the males display, at least the female woodpecker seemed like she was aware of his efforts even if she refused to look at him.