soupy

Kahle Road is turning soupy. Mud season has begun. The mixture of snow & bare ground sometimes looks like the hide of an Appaloosa.

At length the sun's rays have attained the right angle, and the warm winds blow up mist and rain and melt the snowbanks, and the sun, dispersing the mist, smiles on a checkered landscape of russet and white smoking with incense, through which the traveler picks his way from islet to islet, cheered by the music of a thousand tinkling rills and rivulets whose veins are filled with the blood of winter which they are bearing off.
Spring
Walden
Henry David Thoreau

rain

Rain and fog, first of those in a long time. Water in the basement, and in the ditch around the house. Man carrying an umbrella.

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten in the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter when it is already spring. In a pleasant spring morning all men's sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to vice.
Spring
Walden
Henry David Thoreau

made it!

At this point the field in the back is partly bare, and the hill in the back is almost totally free of snow. The other day I saw at least 20 deer scampering across this field in the back. That's the most deer I've ever seen at one time on our land. Every evening around 6:10, a flock of turkeys, 30 or so,  can be seen in this same area. It occurred to me that having land that faces the south, and offers bare ground might attract more animals to the area than usual. This seems to be what's going on. The other night there were a half dozen deer in this same area. They were gamboling around like lambs in the spring, kicking up their heels, and chasing each other around. There was no conserving of energy to allow them to make it through the long, cold winter. It was like they were saying, whew, we made it!

two bobcats!

two bobcats!

Allyn receiving seed catalogs in the mail. Annual letter from the Vermont Botanical and Bird Club. Spring issue of Vermont Life Magazine on sale in stores. Annual photo of indoor high school softball practice in the Rutland Herald.

nosing

bobcat

Skunk out nosing around in the road, a sure sign of spring. Flock of ducks barreling north in the skies above Middlebury.

birth

trail cam turkey

Driving Rte 7 on a Sunday morning; cold, dark, and wet. Feels like the world is giving birth to itself.

icicles

trail cam fox

Icicles gone from eaves of the house. A humungous block of ice pulled down one of the electrical wires at work. Walking outside in the morning before work. People out walking their dogs. Open water on Otter Creek & Woods Pond in Brandon.