Proof of Life and the Promise of Summer

 May 12, 2024

Most of the snow is gone from the yard around our house exposing the trails of voles, scattered moose nuggets, and rabbit droppings. I have collected the bits of trash that blew through the winter and left the leaves, twigs, and cones cast off the trees for the last months. When the snow is four feet deep it appears that nothing is happening on this patch of ground but the evidence is clear that is not true. Obviously, the moose have wandered through on their way to the willow patch along the lake and many times this winter they bedded down next to our porch so that we had our heads on swivel whenever we ventured out. The snowshoe hare spent the winter transiting from the same willow patch to the woodshed and sauna. I think they may have winter under the hot tub deck. One day this March, Madelyn was shoveling snow around the hot tub when the snow berm exploded in front of her, and a hare leaped out of the cloud of snow and disappeared into the cover of the overhanging alders. We didn’t get to see the voles at all but it’s clear they had a comfortable time of it feeding on our sleeping lawn under their snow comforter.  

The migrating ducks are beginning to drop in and this morning we had the first swans feeding in the open water along the shore. The eagles are taking advantage of the exposed shore grass to gather lining for their nests and the elusive snipe is hooting in the wetlands every evening. 

The lake is breaking up now and the hummingbirds have been to the feeder so summer is coming, but it seems to be held up again this year for it was a wet and windy forty-one degrees yesterday. This time of year we’re always impatient for the return of the green rush of summer when plants are growing inches a day, and the alder, willow, and cottonwood create a verdant curtain along the lakeshore. For now, though, our setting is an ugly one strewn with dirty tired snow the color of used dishwater and skeletal willows reaching pathetically toward the sun that we know is there but not seen much this month. 

In the next few days we should be able to drag our kayaks over the carcasses of drifts left buy winter's many blizzards and paddle through leads in the fading ice for ice crashing. From the kayak, we can study the vagaries of ice from the slushy vestiges to thick plates that resist plastic battering rams or break away in great irregular platters. The most alluring of the lake ice phenomena is the chandelier ice, as my friend Tom Gillespie called it, composed of crystals about six inches long and an inch across. When the wind, or a kayak, creates waves the crystals begin to separate and jingle together like wind chimes. The lake ice won’t last long when things are at this stage.

    These cold days of early May are a wet blanket on our summer dreams but the endless daylight and the flurry of life around us reassure our pessimism. The green glut of summer is on the way.