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Today’s critter count (so far): 4 mallards, 2 BIG tom turkeys, 3 deer (still wearing their winter coats), a pond full of bass and grass carp, 5 sunning painted turtles, one BIG surly snapping turtle…………and a partridge in a pear tree.

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Happy Spring!! 
Well, things around the pond have lately taken on a decidedly different ambiance. Spring has begun to assert her first shy colors. The maples, especially the crimsons, are adding reds to the green/golds of new grass, daffodils and forsythia. The dwarf rhododendron are popping some purples into the palette (no extra charge for the alliteration). The lilacs and dogwoods are blooming. Our mountain views are giving way to a cocoon of light lacy green. 
My highly territorial bride has inspired so much goosely fear into our unwanted feathered squatters (double entendre there, in case you didn’t notice) that they actually walked off of the property the other day. Would you believe it? Walked! I’m not sure whether that was their way of showing disdain or ignorance. I didn’t notice that they carried their noses–bills, beaks–whatever–in the air (the avian translation of “kiss my ass feathers”.) So I’ve been told. Or (the biblical kiss of death) kicking the dust from their feet. But I’ll go with ignorance. They’ve flown back in to a spot next to the pond a couple of times during the last week, but left a couple of hours later. Also dumb. But I’ll bet that if I were to go back there and survey the area I’d find a few piles of vengeful goose poop. Some people always have to have the last word.
Mallards have been splashing down now that migration season is heating up. Always a happy event. Some great blue heron should be showing up now that the fish have lost their winter stupor sufficiently to offer some competition. The heron would have found the fish to be much easier prey a few weeks ago. But where’s the sport in that?

Well, it happened. Right on schedule and on the evening of the very day when we were going to take the bird feeder down. Except that we didn’t. And wouldn’t ya know? We were quietly reading after dinner and there was a loud bang on the side of the house. Old Smokey was back. Breaking into our hanging stash of new and improved suet and bird seed. At least it looked like Smokey. A real heavy weight. Probably too big for a sow who had just spent the winter hibernating and birthing a cub or two. Or three. We were even visited one spring by a mom and four cubs. Must have been a really restless snooze.

Anyway, my intrepid bride banged on the window and Smokey beat a fast retreat back into the woods. She stifled an initial urge to go outside to rescue the gruesome remains of the bird feeder. That idea was scratched on the thought Smokey could actually be a mom with cubs. Bad form to encounter a bear mom with her cubs. They tend to take great umbrage to perceived threat and are often inclined to show it. Besides an early morning retrieval of the bird feeder showed it to have survived well, barring some residual angst and a mild case of PTSD. Alas, our precious suet and bird seed were gone.

Time to take the hint and retire the bird feeder to a quiet summer vacation in a warm dark closet until the snow flies again. Otherwise the bears will be lining up out there like it was a Federally funded food program for homeless bears. Caves abandoned and food foremost on their minds. Which I guess they will be. Homeless, that is. And hungry.

Mallards have been making our pond a regular way stop. No offense to them, but we still await the arrival of their little cousins. Wood ducks and crowned mergansers. We hope that a pair will make a home of our new duck house and raise a family. A pair of bluebirds recently turned up their noses–beaks, bills, whatever–at our new blue bird house. Still recovering from the humiliation of that. After all, what do the “White Cliffs of Dover” have that we don’t have”? Bummer.

Well, never trust Mother Nature. Only yesterday we were luxuriating in the fact that the grass was taking on a subtle hint of green. And the trees were beginning to show some red, if reluctant, small buds. Robins were happily prospecting for night crawlers on the front yard. And the grass carp were cruising the surface of the newly thawed pond, gleefully (Ever see carp get gleeful? Nauseating) foraging for whatever the spring winds had blown down. So what happens? Mother Nature pulls another of her cruel tricks and lets her pal Jack Frost back in the door. The only beneficiaries of this grief are the night crawlers. Even the normally sanguine robins are pissed. Sheesh.

B

Blue Winter

Winter uses all the blues there are.
One shade of blue for water, one for ice,
Another blue for shadows over snow.
The clear or cloudy sky uses blue twice-
Both different blues. And hills row after row
Are colored blue according to how far.
You know the bluejay’s double-blur device
Shows best when there are no green leaves to show.
And Sirius is a winterbluegreen star. 
Robert Francis

Well, the subtle harbingers of an oncoming spring are gradually beginning to emerge around Hideaway Pond. The maples are developing small red buds. The grass is showing the first hopeful hints of green. A fact that would be of considerable interest to the grass carp, I‘m sure. They have roused from their winter stupor and they presently patrol the surface for whatever sparse nourishment it offers. Mostly blow down from the February winds. Not exactly gourmet, but it will have to do for now. Fish are not known for their refined epicurean taste, anyway. In fact they’re pretty dumb if you ask me. Or you don’t.

Word has it that the bears are out and roaming for food with their new families. Or so we are told by the gurus of such things at the Woodstock recycling center. Nice to know that the bears recycle their food. As long as it’s not personal. Time to retire the bird feeders for the season. We always do so at this time of year anyway. With the snow gone, there’s ample food within reach. Flight. Whatever.

Considerable action around the pond. The male goose floats alone, anchors aweigh, changing direction with the will of the wind. A bad, if picturesque, sign that Mom is on the nest. And that a gestation of frightening proportions will soon be on the way. Time to convince her that there are better places in the neighborhood to raise her bellicose brood. The alternative being that they will have a major poopfest on our lawn. Or, conversely, become snapper chow. Or both.

Free entertainment. Five mallards dropped in the other day. After puttering around for a while, they suddenly launched into an aerial display rivaling that of the Blue Angels Navy aerobatic team. Well, maybe not. But almost. They would take off and do complete circles, warp speed, about 10 feet above the deck. Militarily speaking, that is. Sometimes they circumnavigated the island and returned to earth with a major splash. This display lasted for about a half hour. Then it ended with a last noisy wet finale. A happy ending. Thus.

Well, things around the pond are showing the first hint of activity. A raccoon started to climb up the side of the house a few nights ago, it’s eyes fixed longingly on the bird feeder that hangs under our upstairs deck. My lovely bride discouraged it quickly with a laser powered glare out the window. It made fast tracks back home, a couple of rings singed from its tail. It must be mentally challenged because she found it yesterday hanging out on the front porch wood pile. No food treats there.

A lone mallard flew in two days ago. Our first avian customer of the year. Mallards are pretty and pleasant little guys. Hopefully, the pond will soon attract some mallards of a female persuasion. We all know what a young mallard’s mind turns to in the Spring. It’s actually a little bit embarrassing. We often have to avert our eyes. Sadly, these little pas de duck usually result in tragedy. No sooner have the ducklings graduated from yoke to yonder than they take a swim and become snapper hors d’oeuvres. Mother Nature is a pragmatic old broad.

Far less welcome was the arrival of a pair of Canada geese. They puttered around an ice free area near the spillway. Obviously a ruse to lull us into complacency so that they can launch into a poop attack on our front yard. Geese are noted for their profuse gastric explosiveness. Worse yet, this characteristic is carried in their DNA. They usually produce a load of ballistic quality eggs. These, they weaponize to create a brood of the meanest messiest little critters on the planet. Hopefully, they’ll get the urge to move on before this assault commences. Perhaps back to Canada. Hopefully soon.

Well, it has finally arrived. “Not with a bang, but a whimper.” I’d swear that I heard a rasping asthmatic sigh as I opened the envelope. The final announcement of the final reunion of the Class of 1954. Dwindled from a few hundred callow and oversexed youths to the wreckage of 65 years worth of hard won rewards and painful humiliation. Wearing diapers to changing diapers to wearing diapers. A white flag of surrender to the inevitable march of time. My proud valedictory now drooling down my shirt front. 20 or so survivors. Or thus we are named in the invitation. Carpe diem.
Smethport High school. Long ago reduced to a pile of brick rubble and formless dry mementos from a family of indifferent stray dogs. Home of the mighty Smethport Hubbers. Prizewinners for the dumbest team name in Pennsylvania state sports. “Orange and black, fight ’em back!” Hallowe’en uniforms. Sheesh. The strained strains of the celebrated Smethport High School Band. Our proud legacy.
Isn’t this when I’m supposed to ask “How the hell did those people get so old“? Well, how the hell did those people get so old?

The clear blue sky and sunshine tempted us beyond our better judgment today. So we braced ourselves and ventured out onto the porch to see what a mid-March day might offer in spite of the cold. Well, Mother Nature had pulled another one of her frequent tricks–this time on the side of the angels. The sun had shone through our upper windows long enough to bring the temperature up to a cozy eighty degrees. Yup. That’s 80 warm, cozy solar degrees. Turns out old Sol had been shining though the upper windows long enough to download some major BTUs onto our humble abode. No ducks or other critters yet. But the warmth inspired thoughts of an impending Spring. OK, that’s not according to the calendar. But 80 degrees? What did Pope Gregory know about weather anyway? I’ll take it.

Well, the gurus of weatherdom put Woodstock wind speed at a mere 40 mph yesterday. Embarrassing, if you ask me, given what folks in other areas endured. Be that as it may, and it probably will, we dodged a bullet–isobar–whatever. White Face Mt in the Adirondacks got 113 mph gusts. Yup, 113. You can look it up. And 28 ft waves built on Lakes Erie and Ontario. At least one idiot was out surfing in that stuff. As Schiller said “Against stupidity, the gods, themselves contend in vain“.

We lost power at 2pm yesterday and were still on the generator when we went to bed at 11PM. This cold blast started in Alaska and by the time it arrived in the NE US it was really pissed. Some swear that they saw a Mounty blow by, still mounted. Not to mention a parka, a pair of Manitobah mukluks, a dog sled team, an Eskimo, a Russian newspaper and an Inuit school bus. Really.