Lake Weather

        Weather at the lake changes so rapidly one can’t assume how it will be from one hour to the next. On Saturday, it was warm and sunny. Luckily, I got in a swim at 11:00. My husband decided he’d wait till it warmed up, but before noon it began to drizzle and within an hour the drizzle grew to a downpour which continued till evening.

               

        “If it’s like this tomorrow,” said my spouse, “we might as well go home.”

        But Sunday—in spite of dire predictions of “possible thundershowers” –remained lovely till twilight. True, overnight there were thundershowers, but those did not put a damper on gardening, swimming, or canoeing.

        So this morning, Memorial Day, fog obscures most of the mountain across the lake. Campers on the Appalachian Trail that passes over that mountain will have to wait to see the vast vistas for which the trail is famous.  But mountain weather is changeable. It’s likely the fog will burn off in a couple of hours. I hope so. It would be nice to swim under a sunny sky again.

        At least the cycle of nature here is predictable, though a bit early by the calendar. The resident swan couple sails regally about, reminding us of their ownership of the south end of the lake.  The lily pads have begun to make an appearance, as have some very few dragonflies and the foliage—including weeds—is lush.

        Ah! The sky is lightening. There are patches of blue. It will be another lovely day—or at least, a lovely morning.

Deep into Spring

I had forgotten how beautiful the lake is. We had stayed away from the lake for almost a month to nurse our cat, MishMish, following her surgery. The lake flashed its smile, almost laughed in the brilliant sunlight. The water was almost warm. The foliage, last time so sparse, was now filled out in many shades of green.  

And the weeds!  Our parking area was embarrassingly over-grown with them. I hate to think what the neighbors say over our neglectful landscaping.  So my husband got out the lawnmower and I put on my gloves and attacked the weeds. Two and a half hours and five buckets-full of weeds later we quit for the day at eight o’clock. The grass is trimmed, but there are still more weeds to remove from the parking area.

“There’s always tomorrow,” I told myself, thinking I’d finish weeding in the morning and clean off with a swim in the lake.

Wrong. We woke up to a drizzle. I pulled two plants of lettuce look-alikes from the garden, added from my compost pile, and planted new seeds—lettuce, zucchini, bush and soy beans. Then the rain came in earnest.  It will, no doubt, help the weeds I hadn’t gotten to to grow taller. More work to look forward to for our next visit.

April Flowers/May Showers

April flowers bring May showers. At least that seems to be what happened this year. I, for one, celebrated the perfusion of blooms this April, and I also celebrate the May rain. 

April had left my newly overturned garden plot bone dry. I was certainly not looking forward to having to continually irrigate in order to plant and nurture my vegetables. And I found myself wondering about the volume of water in our reservoirs. Most winters lay down a blanket of white which slowly melts with spring to fill the streams, rivers, and the reservoirs. But the only real snow came not in winter, but last fall—in October—with a vengeance. Everyone predicted an impossibly brutal winter, but their crystal balls were faulty. And we mercifully, had the mildest winter ever.

But what about the water? With no snow melt to fill the rivers I feared, in April, that we’d have a drought by July. But it seems my crystal ball, too, is faulty. Thank goodness!

Let it rain!

Groundhog Apartment—No longer available for lease

                

                We no longer want the “apartment”—the crawl space beneath our sunroom—to be available to groundhogs.

                “I don’t care if they live under the old stump in the back,” said my husband, “but I don’t want them under the house. They’ll ruin the foundation.”

                So, last month, after we had trapped and released a young groundhog, my husband made a platform of long planks with which he covered the foot-wide plot of earth on the side of the house.  I thought the hosta would push it up as it grew, but I was wrong. It’s just growing between the slats and no groundhog could dig through that.

                The wall under the sunroom on the south side of the house is interrupted by a short staircase and ends at the chimney. So there is only about a yard before the stair and half a yard on the other side where a groundhog could dig.  But dig they did. So we blocked those holes with bricks.

                But we didn’t count on the determination of these creatures.

                Two days ago we discovered fresh dirt on the walkway and a new, smallish hole tunneling right under the stairs. I set the trap and, yesterday, found a very wet groundhog sitting dejectedly in it. We read him his rights and convinced him to relocate.

                But before we could block up the hole—it’s still raining—on saw a groundhog—I’m certain it’s a different one—race across the back of the house and down the hole.

                Ah ha! I know where you are, I thought. So I set the trap again.

                And now there is another young groundhog sitting dejectedly in it.

                We will cement this hole. I do believe in affordable housing but the apartment under our sunroom is not available for squatters.

Just Dandy-lions

I like dandelions, really I do.  Seeing their sunny wildness against a background of green lawn makes me smile. But I also want to be a good neighbor.  Good neighbors don’t raise a crop of flowers that release hundreds of floating seeds to infiltrate nearby manicured lawns.

When I was a child, we called their delicate white seed carriers, which floated on the breeze, “fairies.” We would catch them, make a wish and blow them off our hands. I can’t remember if any of my wishes came true. But each year we chased after the “fairies” so we could wish.

A few years after we moved to Montclair, we had a bumper crop of those cheerful yellow flowers scattered over our front and back lawns. Though I enjoyed the sight, I knew that the following year there would be exponentially more, both in our yard and our neighbors. So I paid my then-young children to dig them out at five cents a plant. When they had filled a small bucket, they complained that it was hard work. So I doubled their wages. They actually removed almost every dandelion.

Each year since then I’ve only had to remove a few dozen dandelions from our lawn.

Last Friday I spent over an hour digging out every lion-headed flower I could find on our property. Today, ten more of the sinister little plants reared their golden heads. I dug out nine. The children on our block should have “fairies” to chase. I want to be a good neighbor.

Unwelcome Tenants

        

            They’re back! Three weeks ago we discovered, in spite of what seemed a successful eviction in the fall, that a groundhog had over-wintered under our sunroom. There were five(!) new holes dug into the patches of grass along the side and back of the house, abutting the sunroom.

            “He’s got to go!” my husband declared. He rooted around in the garage for 40 minutes and dragged out four long planks and a few shorter ones. Soon he had constructed a long platform that he planted over the narrow area along the side of the house.

            “But the hosta is under there!” I protested. “It will push up the planks.”

            “Maybe. Maybe not,” he said. “Meanwhile, it will stop him.”

            He placed a series of bricks along the shorter area in back of the house.

           

            Last week, on two separate days, I saw two groundhogs—one large, and one quite young. In each case, when they saw me, they ran under my neighbor’s Jacuzzi.

            “At least they’ve left us,” my husband said.

            I wish!

            Yesterday there was a freshly dug hole right through the emerging iris foliage and under the bricks. It’s small—seems we have a new, young tenant.

            It’s time to serve another eviction notice! 

A Day for the Birds

            Wednesday was a day for the birds. It was a beautifully warm day—too warm for the first week of March. Certainly the month did not come in like a lion. As we drove out to Sussex, everywhere red hawks swooped low over the roads. They are so graceful. Whenever I see a hawk I find myself singing the line from Oklahoma—“Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I, Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk makin' lazy circles in the sky.”

            At the lake we were greeted, serenaded by bird song. Everywhere there were tweets and warbles, chirps and trills. I sat at the edge of the dock, just enjoying the symphony. The hawks were showing off here too. Suddenly there were seven of them all making large, slow counterclockwise circles over our end of the lake. I don’t think hawks eat fish. Were they simply enjoying the thrill of riding the wind? My husband and I watched in fascination. They defined similar, but non-intersecting circles at different heights. What flight controller had planned their paths?

            

           One hawk came low enough to brush the bare branches of a nearby tree. Then he angled his right wing and, continuing his circle, caught an updraft. How I wished I could soar with him.