Last week we went from Arctic weather to a sudden, surprising melt down. Within a few days of above zero weather, the piles of snow dropped down to the point where I could see some patches of lawn emerging. Despite the joy that comes when the sun shines and the stranglehold of winter seems to be letting up, at the back of my mind it was disturbing because it was a month too early to get this type of reprieve. The compost bin defrosted and made room for a bucketful of kitchen scraps I had been saving for the right occasion to dump. The bags of leaves were visible again beneath the snow so I had dry materials to jam in on top. The forest of broken branches that fell off the ash tree next door are emerging from beneath the snow. We could put a modest size tree together from what came off in the wind, snow and ice the past two months, possibly helped along by some ash-borer beetles we suspect have moved in.
Then the weather became more like a typical March. We had a good old fashioned wet messy snow storm last night. It was supposed to rain, or snow, and what came down was wet and gloppy but definitely on the side of snow.
Today was melty again, after the snow stopped. I am holding off on planting my seedlings for a bit, March is expected to be ups and downs.
