Signs of Destruction, Signs of Life (Updated)

(Updated with a postscript at 9:30 a.m. on Monday, April 2, 2018)

The weather people say March 1 is the beginning of meteorological spring. The calendar says spring begins around March 20.

Flowering maple, March 31, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

This year, for me, spring began on March 30 when it was mild enough for me to sit outside on my patio in my robe and listen to the dawn chorus of robins, cardinals, two types of crows, titmouse, mourning dove and Canada geese. Except for where the snow had been piled the highest, all of it was gone, I could see the flowers on the maple trees and Ifelt as though winter was finally over.

But that mildness meant something else -- migrating birds.

It seems like a lifetime ago that we had warm weather, but it was only the end of February when MH and I went down to Barnegat Light to take pictures, walk the beach and celebrate an unusually warm day. Then March came and with it four nor'easters. The first brought the strongest winds since Hurricane Sandy in 2012, toppling trees and taking out power lines. The second brought about 20 inches of snow, pummeling my fence posts and burying the snowdrops and crocus that had begun to blossom. The next two were glancing blows, giving us "only" about six inches.

In the last week, however, the temperatures, while still below normal for March, were above freezing and the snow slowly melted. The winds started blowing up from the south. I could see the winter damage to be repaired. The snowdrops and crocus reappeared and continued blooming, now joined by an assortment of daffodils. The iris showed signs of life. The feeder birds were joined by others I only see when they pass through in spring or autumn.

Damage from the second nor'easter (Margo D. Beller)

I sat on my patio and heard a golden-crowned kinglet's call as it followed the chickadees through the yard. Then came the soft "seeees" from a flock of cedar waxwings up in one of my trees. (I could not see them until they took off in a group.) A phoebe flew to a lower branch in the apple tree looking for insects. It flicked its tail a couple of times and then took off. I rarely get phoebes in my yard because they prefer areas near water. But a hungry phoebe that has just arrived and not picked a nesting territory yet is not choosy.

For many people, phoebes are the first migrant of spring, soon followed by tree and barn swallows, chipping sparrows and palm warblers.

The mild air coming from the south opened the floodgates for northbound migrants unable to head to their breeding grounds because of the persistent cold blasts that had pummeled us up until that moment.

Sewer line, across from dog park (Margo D. Beller)

So on Saturday I went for a walk. I started on the fringes of what I still call Greystone, even though it is now officially the Central Park of Morris County. There were 27 cars parked at the dog park, which meant at least 27 people and 27 dogs. But of course there were more because people were bringing their spouses and/or their children and many had more than one dog.

As they enjoyed their time outside my attention was drawn to the other side of the road, where it was obvious there had been a lot of destruction, all of it man-made. During the winter I had seen pipes laid out along the road. Now they were all buried underground and a sewer manhole had been put in near the brook. The trees closest to the road, the brush that once hid birds, the dead stump where I saw a pileated woodpecker hunting for carpenter ants, gone.

Worse, the little tree that had been struggling to grow on its small hillside for years was gone, buried under rubble or uprooted. Despite the birds chirping around me, I was saddened. I do not know why this sewer was put in by this town (next to mine) but I do know roads are being put in to expand the park's use. Perhaps a larger bathroom facility is planned? As usual, when there is development even in a park something goes by the wayside. Farther up the road there were woods where I once found a variety of birds including bluebirds and several types of flycatcher. They are gone now, replaced by a large field for soccer.

March 31, 2018. A tree once stood here (Margo D. Beller)

February 2018. (Margo D. Beller)

More people and dogs, fewer trees. More soccer fields, fewer places to walk in quiet. Parks don't pay taxes so to pay their way they must offer a range of activities. Even the most famous Central Park, the one in New York City, does that. But that Central Park is far larger than this one, and this expansion closer to home rankles.

I continued on. A pair of mourning cloak butterflies flew by as I watched the cowbirds, which will soon be dropping eggs in other birds' nests, to the detriment of the nests. Once I left the shade of the trees and the calls of song sparrows and cardinals the sun beat down from a cloudless sky. I was not the only one out. People running, people walking dogs, people raking or blowing last year's leaves off their lawns, kids playing in the yard. Men in long shorts and women in sweatshirts while I, not quite believing it could be so warm at last, was in my light parka, small binoculars in the big pocket. Turkey vultures and fish crows flew overhead. The first forsythia flowers were blooming.

Spring is here. The signs are everywhere from the birdsong to the heightened outdoor activity and the noise that goes with it. The days are getting longer and at some point the temperatures will go from below average to where they are supposed to be.  Each year at this time I am amazed that winter or my lack of care didn't kill off my garden plants.

It is time to start planning on repairing fences, putting down wood chips, pulling weeds and moving the pots of peppers and tomato outside. Time to plan on rising and traveling to the nearby hot spots early to listen for arriving migrant birds. Planning is conditional, however. I plan to do this and other things but I know nothing is certain, including the warmer weather.

Already I've seen reports there will be snow tonight. It's April, TS Eliot's cruelest month.  I've barely begun my garden cleanup.

Postscript: Yes, it snowed. Again.

April 2, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

Signs of Leaf

When the last of the snow from the "Blizzard of 2017" finally melted or was washed away by this week's heavy rain, MH rushed out to walk the property, gimpy knees and all, to put fertilizer on the lawn.

Fading white crocus - April 1, 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

He was not alone. Several men I saw - and it is usually men, either homeowners or hired - were doing the same or using leaf blowers to push off last year's detritus. It must be some sort of innate call of the wild.

I, meanwhile, took a walk around the garden and found - once again, despite my neglect - signs of life, although in most cases these were more signs of leaf.

I am currently rereading the letters of garden writers Katharine White (for the New Yorker; she was the wife of E.B. White) and Elizabeth Lawrence (for the Charlotte (NC) Observer). Their intense discussions of flower borders, little bulbs and the wreckage in the gardens caused by weather or failing bodies that just can't keep up seems even more relevant to me now than the first time I read this, several years ago.

Glory of the snow - April 1, 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

So, inspired by them, I, too, walked the property, eager to see what was doing well and what was not.

We had a warm February and that had started some plants growing way too early. Then the cold and snow came with March, and many of the plants went into suspended animation. The yellow crocuses hung around quite a while but the snowdrop came and went. Small narcissus started blooming but several of the larger daffodils caught mid-bloom when the cold came looked bedraggled. Before the blizzard I cut them and put them in water inside, to prolong their life. I did the same with a couple of branches of forsythia, another early bloomer.

Now, more daffodils are growing; more of the white, pink and purple crocus have appeared; and a little blue glory of the snow reminded me of its existence once the snow melted. But some of the daffodils in flower are much smaller than they should be. The leaves of the butterfly bush I rushed to cut back in mid-February as they proliferated are now dried up and I wonder if they will grow again. The forsythia looks very poor and the quince buds are still waiting for the weather signal to open. Same with the dogwood buds.

Budding dogwood - April 1, 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

However, all the rain has started the ornamental onions, the bleeding heart and the lilacs growing, the irises are getting taller, the tulips that had stopped growing have restarted, and all of these should open on time.

The birds have also been active. Goldfinches visit the feeder, the males just starting to show their breeding yellow feathers and black "cap" on the head. Cardinals and titmice are singing up a storm. Robins are everywhere. I walked along the Whippany River the other day with MH and we counted eight phoebes, a very early migrant. More birds will be coming north once things warm up, the trees leaf out and the bugs start flying. 

I would love to put in more early spring bloomers for the color but, except for the daffodils, they can be eaten by hungry deer, which have been browsing on my lawn for whatever little bits of grass they can get since the smaller shrubs are behind netting, along with the budding azaleas. It takes a lot of effort to kneel down and put in plants, particularly when dealing with deer netting.

Daffodils with newly growing bleeding heart at left (Margo D. Beller)

Neither White nor Lawrence mention deer, although White mentions red squirrels and other critters getting into some of her flower beds over the Maine winter. Lawrence despairs of bringing order to unruly beds. I'd love to have that problem of too many flowers. But while I inherited my grandfather's affinity for plants, I don't seem to have his stamina, at least at present.

What I do have is a huge desire to buy plants and put them in pots, both inside (where I have many flowering plants crowding my one sunny window sill) and out (behind netting). In my garage are boxes of canna roots and one dahlia I did just about everything wrong on and yet it flowered. I have seeds I have collected from vegetables and flowers. One of my friends has pepper seedlings growing on her window sill. She put hers in during the warm spell. Mine went into soil when it turned cold and have yet to come up in their pot.

I discovered this lenten rose (helleborre) flower on the morning of April 1, the first time the plant has flowered in years. (Margo D. Beller)

Luckily, I have more than enough seeds to try again and wait for those signs of life, or leaf, to remind me of rebirth and renewal.

Desperately Seeking Signs of Life

We've had a hard frost and the ground is frozen. There is still snow on the ground in spots, remnants of our most recent blizzard. Cold is a given in February and the birds are eating seed and suet to give them the fat they need to survive another day.

Blizzard, January 2016 (Margo D. Beller)

 The cold has brought a female hairy woodpecker to the suet. Unlike her smaller cousin the downy, this woodpecker takes big hacks at the frozen suet cake until she breaks off a piece she can take elsewhere and either eat or cache. The same is true for the male redbellied woodpecker who comes next. These two big woodpeckers soften up the suet for the smaller downys with their tiny but hard taps.

I see all this from a chair on my northeast-facing enclosed porch. Despite being able to see my breath, sitting in the sun with my warm robe and my coat on I am very comfortable. It is the first time I've been able to sit out here this winter.

February is a strange time in the northern hemisphere. In the year I was born my February birth day was the coldest day that year. Even with the clear evidence of global warming and it being an "El Nino" year, we awake to temperatures in the low to mid 20s and consider that a good thing. We've had very few night temperatures in the single digits this 2015-2016 season, which is a blessing compared with last year when the polar cold had us in its grip. Of course, that could change in a hurry. Daily we hear of another potential snowstorm, another visit from the Polar Vortex.

In a reversal from the autumn pattern, the cold allows me to leave the four feeders outside overnight because the bears are hibernating. However, I must take the hanging water cooler inside so it doesn't become a block of ice.

But if you need a sign that winter will end at some point and spring warmth will return, you can find it in February.

February is when you suddenly realize you're not shutting the sun room's shades at 4:30 pm but almost an hour later. You discover you no longer wake to pitch dark at 7am. The plants overwintering on enclosed porch are now getting several hours of direct sunlight where before they were lucky to get 30 min. because the sun is coming up earlier and its arc from east to west is changing to give us more light.

My favorite photo of a cardinal pair in winter. (Margo D. Beller)

If you like man-made signs, while the football season has been prolonged into February - it's Super Bowl Sunday as I write, the secular American Thanksgiving - we can look forward to baseball's pitchers and catchers showing up in Florida and Arizona to give us renewed hope.

Things are changing for the birds, too. After the blizzard, temperatures rose above freezing for about a week and then heavy rain took down most of the snow. Suddenly there was birdsong - cardinals, titmice and house finches in particular. More daylight and temperatures above freezing started them thinking of spring and what a bird does in spring - find a mate.

The cold had already made the usually skittish cardinals more assertive about dislodging the sparrows and the finches to get some seed. They had to be or they'd have died.

But they are more territorial. They want my yard, with its usually stable food source, as their territory when it comes time to mate and breed young. At the house feeder one dawn, a male cardinal sat on one side and a female on the other. Usually one would chase off the other. Was this a pair? A second male flew in and dislodged the female; the first male took off after him. Yes, the female and the first male are a pair.

Under the frozen ground, the daffodils, ornamental onions and, I hope, the glory of the snow I planted late last year are waiting for the signal to start growing. The warmer than usual December into January fooled some of the daffodils into poking their noses above ground. This happens every winter. Despite the eventual snow and cold the flowers will come back.

Skunk cabbage (Margo D. Beller)

Along the stream banks, the skunk cabbage is also waiting for the signal. Most people don't notice skunk cabbage, and if they are smart they don't step on it or they'll get a noseful of why it has that name. I like it because it is something green growing after a season of white. It's a sign we survived another winter.

Yes, there will come a point in the middle of the year when the heat and humidity will get to me, the daffodils will have faded, the grass will desperately need to be mowed and the weeds will overrun the garden despite my best efforts. But right now I am happy to see some signs of life in the middle of this dead season.