One Day Spring

March 8, 2012 -
compare to the blog header, taken 6 months ago

The premonitory signs of spring continue to unfold. This week the radio has been haranguing people to get their ice fishing shacks on shore. It's common sense, but to inoculate themselves against being accused of nanny-statism, the authorities are careful to point out how much recuses cost. The media especially highlights shacks on the Kennebec River, which will be hosting Coast Guard icebreakers starting this coming week.

Francie Sniffing Hard

The ice breakers start in Merrymeeting Bay - one of my all-time favorite place names - and work upstream. It seems odd to break up the ice just as the ice is breaking up anyway. But if the icebreakers don't do their thing, ice piles up into huge dams. If the spring snow melt and rain have nowhere to go when they hit the obstructions, they flow sideways over the homes and businesses long the river.

Yesterday it was really warm in Maine, even though the cold returned over night. I started in on my spring to-do list. I'm slow enough and the list is long enough that I wonder if I'll just keep doing it until it becomes the Fall List. I got the red French cafe table out onto the deck, since impending blizzards won't hurt it.

I really like winter in Maine, but like a visiting relative,  I'm happy to see it eventually go away. Maine people are doing something that isn't all that common around here - talking to strangers on the street, in this case me, because they can't contain their excitement about the changing weather. And we're all forgiving the touristy rabble poised on the horizon.

Norby Studying the Bird Feeder

The changing of the guard has started in the animal world. The geese are honking their way up river instead of downwards. Foxes have been denning for about a month, so I'm starting to look out for kits. It's too early for most of the spring birds, but at least that also means the nastiest of the bugs aren't around either. Yet.

Finally, here's a bio-shout out to the coming of the spartina. Considered a noxious weed in some parts of the country, the two types we have here are miracles of adaptation. They live in water that kills other plants, because of tides that rise and fall a dozen feet twice in a day, and they don't die of the salt. These plants are strikingly different from most other plants, with their processing of salt and other plant poisons, their snorkels for breathing at high tide, their keystone role in creating the marsh itself, and sheltering and feeding an entire ecosystem of creatures. As the spartina starts to grow and make the marsh crazy with green, I'l post photos.

Sunning Gulls Across the River