SPRING TIME IN MAINE AND MORE

This year we are going to forfeit spring here in the western mountains of Maine.  We have over three feet of snow on the ground and more expected Thursday and again Saturday.   Normally, we experience a week to ten days of zero or below consecutive nights each winter, but we have been in the single numbers or below almost every night for six weeks.  Tonight the forecast is for five above (on the coast) to fifteen below up north. Here at the cabin we will be somewhere in the below numbers.    

The problem with this winter is the snow cover combined with the low temperatures.  Somewhere between now and June the temps are going to take a seasonable jump and when they do our snow melt is going to cause flooding and an enhanced mud season.  

Mud season here in Maine is not for the faint of heart.   The people on the coast, for the most part, will fare all right; but those of us up her in the rural north that live on dirt roads have to make special preparations.

A neighbor of mine puts one of those big whip antennas on his Honda, even though he doesn’t own a CB.   He figures that if he loses the car in a mud hole he will know where to have his kids dig when the ground firms up.   We all carry extra supplies (just in case) including one of those avalanche beacons.     

Some people strap those beacons to the back of their children’s back-packs before they send then out to catch the school bus.   I have seen others men strap empty fifty-gallon oil drums to each side of their cars – I understand that this also allows you to safely continue ice fishing late into the spring.

We up here in north western Maine are known as resourceful.  Unlike the flatlanders down on the coast it is not unusual to find some old dubber with a 1947 Sears outboard on the back of his boat – the damn thing probably doesn't work but it sure looks good to the ‘people from away’ when he paddles into shore - and if it was good enough for his father and grand father….   Yes we are resourceful: we can start a wood fire without charcoal lighter fluid (gasoline works just as well – and faster) and we know the difference between deer shit and moose shit and bear shit and people shit. 

Speaking of bear shit; did you know that during berry season bear shit is rainbow colored.   It gets these pretty shades of purple, lavender, pink and blue.   I swear that someone could paint with it onto canvasses and sell them through L.L. Beans.    (I am full of ideas: after all I invented the moose turd earrings and worry beads, and a couple of years later found the same thing for sell at Beans.)  

But I digress:  with the winter we have had (and are having) I won’t be able to dance necked in the back yard around a bonfire on the first day of Spring.   Maybe my wife will let me dance around a candle on the living room floor - as long as I don’t get in front of the TV.  

Where ever you are; have a happy Spring  – and dance necked around a bonfire if you get a chance. 

the Ol’Buzzard