Big March Snow

February Train Ride

Winter Sun, Boston

Real Winter

I've been told that the Inuit have 7 words for snow. Icelanders have a word for a volcano that erupts beneath a glacier and causes a flood once the glacier wall gives way (hlaup). I wonder if those cultures have a word for real winter. This winter is the real deal. Granted, we've had many bluebird, days, but we have had lots of snow -- the banks of snow at the end of my driveway are up to my shoulder. We've also had lots of cold: 30 F feels downright balmy.

I'm not complaining. I actually like the extreme weather (not like tornadoes or Cat 5 hurricanes) but cold and snow in the winter, and heat in the summer fascinate me. They change how we interact with our world, how we function and take us out of life's everyday sameness. If you think about it, life between 35 F and 80 F is very pleasant, very easy to deal with. When you start to creep up on the high end or dip below the low end, things start to get tougher, more interesting, a bit less comfortable. Couple temps beyond this range with precipitation, humidity (or lack thereof in winter) and we are forced to adjust, and compensate even more.

Unsettled, harsher weather reminds us that we dwell in a sometimes tough place, and that despite heating and air conditioning we are still subject to nature's vagaries when we leave our cocoons. I'm looking forward to spring (who doesn't?) but I enjoy what is happening now, and permit real winter to remind me where I am, and what I am.

Merry Christmas

Fast Tracks

Last Wednesday night a healthy dusting of light fluffy snow fell on the Quarter Acre. In the morning there were quite a few animal tracks in the yard and Child One and I followed some cat, rabbit (C1 identified them before I did) and crow tracks before heading off to school. The cat and rabbit tracks went from the back yard to the front, and the crow's tracks were especially entertaining and loopy on the sidewalk. In the afternoon I took both Child One and Child Two into the yard to follow the rabbit and cat tracks some more. We also saw the tracks of a frenetic small bird on our patio.

My interest in tracks was piqued when I found some coyote prints in the back yard the week prior. Though I didn't show them to my kids I made a mental note to bring them out and look for tracks after a snow. Mother Nature obliged and so did our wild and semi-domesticated neighbors. Both kids got a big kick out of our investigation and it was a fun way to kill some time on a cold winter day.

Leap Year Shmeap Year

As if February is not already interminable, this year it has an extra day. I understand that the earth's orbit around the sun takes 365.25 days . . . I understand that this physical reality necessitates the addition of a calendar day every four years and that since February has but 28 days it has room for the extra. Could we not add the extra day to one of the months with 30 days? The end of April can be lovely, as is the end of June and even September. But, no. We add one more day to February, the longest month.

Shaking the Trees

Monday, a Nor'Easter dropped about 8-10 inches of snow on the Quarter Acre. the snow was an odd, pasty consistency that stuck really well to trees and shrubs and really bent them over but it was not that heavy to shovel. I went out just after dinner to move some snow from the end of the driveway, after a late plow run, and noticed that the trees and shrubs in front of the house were seriously laden.

The beautiful Kusa Dogwood just outside of our front door was in serious danger of collapsing from its snow cover. For some reason, neither Mrs. Agricola nor I had noticed during the day how bowed and very much in danger it was of losing one of its main leaders. In order to prevent losing this tree I started shaking it with my shovel to knock the snow out of it and lessen its load. Snow was falling all around me, and I had a slight worry, in the back of my mind, that maybe, just maybe, the shaking would break the tree and I'd get nailed by a big snow-covered branch. The shaking seemed to work, caused no further damage, and this morning the leader seemed to regain its more typical, vertical alignment.

I also shook a Rose of Sharon right in front of the house that typically stands about 12 feet high. With it's snow cover it was bent nearly in half. Now, Rose of Sharons are tough, willowy trees that grow like weeds. I'm not a huge fan of them, but this one is pretty large and shields the house from the sun so I gave it some good shakes to release some weight. It too returned to it's normal verticality.

I've shoveled lots of walks and driveways in my day but never actually shoveled trees. I've got a thing for trees though and the Kusa, in particular, is an attractive and valuable specimen that would would have been terrible to lose due to storm, or more accurately, post-storm damage. Add tree shaking to the list of homeowner's responsibilities,

Snow Day

Taken 1 14 08

Sunset Quarter Acre

Taken by Mrs. Agricola.

December-180

This December has been the absolute opposite of last December. Last year the temperature through December was in the 50s with some days in the 60s. I actually mowed my lawn in mid-December because it needed it and had continued to grow.

This year I mowed the lawn in early December just because I got a bit psychotic about the leaves that were blowing onto it from the hill at the back of the Quarter Acre. An injured ankle kept me off the hill and prevented raking which lead to blowing leaves and the aforementioned psychosis. The temp that day was about 30 F and it started to snow as I put the mower in its shed.

It only snowed a dusting that day but last week we got two heavy winter blasts. The first came on 13 December -- a ten inch deposit of snow that absolutely crippled the region and left me in my car, stuck on 128/I-95 for seven hours. I never made it home, opting, instead, to stay at my parents' house rather than extend my 53 mile commute into an 11 hour ordeal. I'd never seen anything like that evening's commute and I've driven to Buffalo in less time than it took me cover those 35 miles between work and my folks' house.

Two days after that we got a funky Nor'easter that dropped a decent amount of snow before turning to rain. It made for some miserable and soaked shoveling but it's real, New England, winter weather. The front yard of the Quarter Acre now looks like a World War One trench system with the front walk shoveled out, a path around to the side door, the drive way and sidewalks cleared and a trench dug that permits the spotlight that I put on the front door each Christmas to actually light the door.

I've long been a fan of the pristine snow cover but this December has changed me. I love the paths and boot prints and the sled marks in the yard -- a real winter camp/adventure feeling is permeating the Quarter Acre. I'm not quite sure where to put any snow from any future storms, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Unless some crazy tropical air mass surges in from the south this Christmas should be a white Christmas, the first that I can remember in years.

Raptor On The Merrimack

Yesterday, I saw something I've never seen in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts: a Bald Eagle. I was talking to the IT person at my current gig when I looked out the window and saw this large dark bird with a white head and white tail feathers swooping over the Merrimack River. It was a pretty amazing sight and it reminded that in August, after writing "Hawk vs. Crows" I had mentioned that I would post about some of the raptor activity I'd seen over the summer.

Well fall has passed as well and I never did that post, so here is a brief rundown of some of the more memorable things I've seen.

In late June Mrs. Agricola and I were at a Red Sox game. At some point in the early innings I looked into center field and saw a falcon soaring around. It alighted on the large John Hancock sign in center field, sat thee for a couple of batters and then was gone. I'm sure that it was the same falcon that I used to see when I worked in the Prudential Center.

In mid-summer a moving van nearly hit a huge Red Tail about 400 yards from the Quarter Acre. The bird swooped low across the road and banked sharply and nearly vertically up the front of the truck's box to avoid being hit. I got a great view of its breast and wings and tail feathers as I drove by in the opposite direction.

We visit Mrs. Agricola's father on Cape Cod frequently during the summer and the Ospreys are all over the place down there. As a kid it was rare to see the Sea Hawk, but they are everywhere now -- their huge nests resting atop perches built for that purpose as well as on power line towers.

Up until about a month ago I was working in Harvard Square where a Peregrine Falcon often caught my eye. I didn't see this bird too much this summer but did notice that it had returned in the Fall.

I jumped back into the freelance market in mid-November and took a job up in Newburyport, MA. I cover about 53 miles each way up I-95/128 and there are loads of Hawks along the ride. At least twice over the past three weeks I've seen a large hawk standing in the median strip, in the grass, in the same place each time. I don't why he's there but the fact that he's in the same spot leads me to believe that he's not just made a kill. His northern-Mass kin all sit in trees, but he's on the ground.

Nothing compares to the Eagle though, that was an amazing site.

Small Signs

After our morning constitutional, during the cool down phase, we took a walk around the Quarter Acre. A week ago we got a solid, late-season dumping of snow that froze very hard. A couple of lovely spring days have melted it though, and the smells of thawing earth and melt-water once again fill the air.

Greening grass, emerges from beneath winter thatch. Tulips and daffodils, planted last fall (some partially sprouted during a weirdly warm December, and are now a bit burned) are sprouting in earnest; and, Tiger Lilies, that will not bloom until late June, have broken through the soil to begin their ascent. The sun shines brighter, longer, at a steeper angle each day, warming both earth and air.

Today, we sense a certain Spring-hopefulness. The Quarter Acre is shedding its drab winter garb and emerging from its latency. It is time we did the same, the signs are all around.

March 16?

More fun!

Commute

Fun!

Damnable DST

Mark us, along with farmers and others who are up and at 'em on the earlier side of the day, as opponents of Daylight Savings Time.

We run, and winter is always a hard time to maintain the regimen given the cold weather and treacherous footing. The greatest hindrance, however, is the darkness: it's purely psychological, we admit, but it's a huge hurdle. Because we have children at home there is no time to run in the evening and that puts us squarely on a morning routine. The past couple of weeks have been great and relatively bright -- a nice reward for dark January and dim February. Again, with the imposition of DST we run in pre-dawn gloom rather than lovely first light.

Many of our colleagues are giddy about the fact that they get to commute home in daylight . . . we say who cares? Admittedly, it is nice to have light until 9:30 PM; but, after finishing dinner and putting children in bed it's not the most useful time of day for us. Sitting on the porch in the gloaming is nice but we realize no efficiencies from this extra daylight.

We realize that we are in the minority on DST, but in a lifestyle geared to the morning hours, waking up in light rather than gloom is preferable. Perhaps, sometime in the not-too-distant-future time will always be "standard." Until that time however, we'll lay out our running gear now so that it will be easier to find in the dark, tomorrow morning.

Random Thoughts

We've got a bunch of random thoughts and observations that we've been hashing around since the last post on 3/3, with nothing really coalescing into any sort of coherent post. So, here goes:

Oops!
DeVille Patrick is in trouble again. He made what essentially amounts to a lobbying call to Citigroup and his old pal, and fellow Clintonista, Bob Rubin on behalf of a company for which he served as a board member. The latter is struggling and Citgroup has business interests in the Commonwealth. This side trip into an ethical gray area (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) occurred after DeVille specifically warned his staff to avoid any actions that could be deemed "unethical." Clintonistas know how to skirt the ethics line, and, somehow, to get away with it. Together we can . . .

Jumped the Gun
We spoke too soon in regards to the demise of the ice age. Arctic cold dropped like an anvil on top of Boston where it has remained for the past three days. The once slushy ice sheet in the backyard is now a solid sheet of glistening ice.

Comets on the Curb
Speaking of ice . . . the stuff that's left by the sides of the roads, covered in sand, dust and other substances is something beyond ice at this point. It's more akin to the material that makes up comets.

Doves
There are three nesting pairs of Doves in the backyard who have been riding out the cold hunkered down in some Myrtle and left-over oak leaves. They sit in the sun on the hill at the back of the Quarter Acre for hours on end, puffed up, eyes half closed. When we lived in Brooklyn we had a nesting pair who built a a flimsy little nest on our fire escape. The nest held two eggs, both of which hatched. A crow however came and upset the whole thing, stealing one baby, and knocking the other to a lower roof where the it ended up in a gutter. The parents tended the baby there and the baby dove eventually flew away -- literally making it out of the gutter.

Call of the Wild
There is a cool cat that comes wandering through the yard, on a pretty regular schedule. He's big, he's clean, his gray and white coat is thick. He took a run at the birds on the ground (see, above: Doves). Before we saw him charge down the hill some birds got skittish and started bolting -- we thought that maybe the hawk was coming in for a kill. The cat scattered the remaining birds and squirrels none of whom returned until the next day. We're not at all cat (or even animal people) but hunting, outdoor cats are pretty cool -- mini suburban tigers.

The Ice Age Winds Down

Today was a beautiful, sunny, 50 F day. The ice sheet that covers the Quarter Acre is melting rapidly and the yard is being revealed. Spring is definitely on the way. An interesting leftover from the ice sheet's retreat are large number of rocks and pebbles that washed down the hill at the back of the property. They occupy the area at the foot of the hill and the top of the lawn, piled up like glacial scree.

Another interesting leftover is copious amounts of rabbit droppings. It almost seems as if a whole herd of bunnies sits on our lawn eating and pooping all night. On close inspection the grass is fairly well cropped, and the amount of droppings is staggering. There are also some rather dense tufts of rabbit down. Our theory is that this part of the yard gets sun all year 'round and the snow melts in this area -- whereas much of the lawn sits in the house's shadow and sits under ice still. So, the rabbits come and dine on what they can find, and fertilize as they go.

Snowman

Another reason to be happy about our move.

Sunset