Sunday 20 May 2012


Spring Bursts Without Me
The next visit to the land to check on the house construction was met with a scene of white and pale green buds and blossoms that had bloomed since my last visit. I was excited to see that the grasses were growing higher and hay was beginning to get higher on the surrounding untouched field. It was also a panic as well. For if the hay grows too high, it will prevent me from walking on all the field that I was planning to explore. The summer we posted the poles for the proposed road up the hill, my husband and the over six foot tall contractor were lost in the hay. They used their long poles to wave to each other and find the road direction to stake the poles. I am much shorter than both these men. We had plans to bush hog the field and control the height of the hay, but as we are late finishing the house, so is the plan to cut the hay before it gets too tall. I will have to wait and be patient once we are into the house and later into the season.
Meanwhile where we had plowed up the grounds for the house build, the grasses were not too high yet and I wandered up to the tree line to investigate the numerous types of bush and trees coming to life in this new season. I haven’t yet bought my guide book on flora and  fauna of Nova Scotia so that I can learn the names of the species. I took a few photographs and will check online for some tree types to match my pictures of buds and repost results of pictures there. I do notice that I can get a CD of identification of trees from Natural Resources and will call  for that item.
I haven’t yet seen any mammals like the contractor had seen and strained my eyes toward the far tree line hoping to see some deer or small movements in the grass. So far on the land the birds and insects is all I have taken note of in my search. I did notice the hornets that were enjoying the heat off the deck seemed unusually large to me. Maybe having been left to their own devices in this abandoned hay fields, they have managed to grow rather large. I wonder if all the species I will come across will be somewhat healthier for living here. That could be a bit of a worry depending on what kind of mammal we run into while outdoors.
I had noticed when we turned in that the lengthly drain ditches, yet to be graded to the gravel road top, had something dark and moving in the shallow water running to the main stream at the bottom of the hill. I walked back down from the house the fourteen hundred feet of driveway to the road. There were black tadpoles filling the ditches and I stopped to photograph. Another research project for me to see what species of frog will develop from these tadpoles. Another fear as it has only been a few weeks that we could hear the spring peepers along the highway as we drove. We had once rented a house having just moved to our present home, and it stood across from a marsh. For a terrible week, we were serenaded by spring peepers day and night, but mostly night. At one point madness had set in and I opened the bedroom window after midnight and screamed at them to shut up. I had been awake for nights at this point. The chorus immediately stopped for all of fifteen seconds before resuming. As romantic a sign of warm weather finishing our long winter that these peepers sing to us, I fear that next spring a week of madness waits for us.


 http://www.bedfordart.ca

As usual my visit up to the house, did not leave me with time to take out the art supplies or get right into the woods. The construction still requires our diligence and we were off to make some needed purchases. I had carried my sketchbook from the Art house coop museum project, but didn’t have time to open the book. This is a world wide project where an artist fills the small book with her art and sends it back into the Boston museum where it will eventually go out on tour with all the others. In my second year of the project I want to record the land with drawings. I will have to wait until I have more time on the land to use my art tools. It is to be hoped that as we get closer to completion on the house, that time will come and I will have some artwork for this blog as well.  http://www.facebook.com/bronzecast        

1 comment:

  1. Carolyn,
    I enjoyed the blog and photos of Spring!

    ReplyDelete