Saturday, 1/22/11

 Right now I am watching the buds on the trees and the leaves on my rhododendron. Did you know that the leaves on a 'rhodie will lose some color and fold down against the branches when the temperature goes below freezing? It is a survival technique. Reduce the surface area and less dehydration occurs for the plant. I use that large 'rhodie outside our bay window as sort of a thermometer. When the leaves come up and into normal position, I know its a relatively nice day out. But if they are down, like now, you know its cold.It's like the buds on the trees. Now everybody (myself included) is moaning and groaning about the cold and the snow. We all act like it is never going to end. This is it everybody, January forever! But the truth is time moves on. We can't stop it. It is inevitable. The trees don't know any different. It is what it is. They grow taller, some live, some die, some end up as firewood being burned in my furnace. They continue. Last fall the leaves changed color into reds, yellows and/or browns. Then they fell off the trees, littering the road and the woods. Some ended up in burrows to help keep small rodents warm during the winter months. For the trees that fall into the deciduous category (that is trees that lose their leaves annually or seasonally) this is just what they are suppose to do. The branches are bare and often stark again the blue skies of winter. Sometimes they are covered in snow making them look like intricate lace. About now is when you can notice if you look up towards the tops of the trees there are buds. They are small but they are there. These are the trees flowers. They come despite the cold and snow. And it doesn't change, every year they are there proclaiming that once again we are heading towards spring. They are truly the first harbingers of spring. I watch them starting their slow movement towards spring. And at the worse of times, when I have shoveled the same path 3 times and the snow is still coming down or when I go outside for my walk and I can feel my nose hairs freeze, those buds are still growing.
Soon it will be February. And then March. March brings sugaring season. You can start out by having snow up and beyond your knees when you first tap and by the end of the season you can be walking on almost bare ground. The end of sugaring season is when the trees 'blush'. That is, they are flowering and it's time to pull the taps out of the sugar maples and let them use that sap to continue their growth. When you look at the hillsides you can see the 'blush' of those trees, the hills are pink, red and yellow.  And believe it or not summer will come around again and we can start complaining about the heat.
It's really not  fun right now walking down my dirt road. It's a misery. But as I have said before there are those winter days that well, don't make up for it, but remind me why I live here. And sooner but more than likely later, spring will come. I will be looking for the red winged blackbirds, the dog tooth violets and the spotted salamanders and without fail they will be there.
So hang in there. The snow will melt, eventually. The temperatures will break 32*, eventually. And, eventually, it will be spring. But definitely not soon enough.