Life in Rural Massachusetts: Late Snow Storm

It's April 18th. We've had to restrain ourselves to keep from starting our vegetable garden. The rule is: "Never before Mothers Day" and, apparently, there's a reason for that.

We had 70 MPH winds and heavy rain early in the week and had a tree come down across the road.

The tree broke off about 10' up and fell across the road. Someone must have pushed it onto the shoulder before we were even aware that it was down. We got out in the rain and raked all of the remaining debris off the road and out of the driveway across the road. This picture was taken the next day.

We hauled all of the small stuff around to a new burn pile and cut the trunk up, stacked it and put a "Free" sign on it (as you can see, I took down that 10' stump). The free firewood sat there all day and then disappeared under cover of darkness {except for the splintery pieces from either side of the break - they were added to the burn pile).

I had thought that I was through with burning for the year. I had burned 12 piles and the weather had turned drier and warmer. With this good start on a 13th pile, I added some of my brush cuttings to it and had one last burn. My permit expires on May 2 so that will definitely be my last.

On Thursday morning, we had a 1/2" of snow. It never collected on the roads and was fully melted early in the day.

This morning, we had about 6" of very wet snow. Again, nothing on the roads (the roads get so much sun this time of the year that they are like heat sinks). It's almost 11 am and the amount on the ground is diminishing even as the snow continues to come down heavily.

I just fixed the windmill yesterday. The high winds had bent the blades back.

We're ready for spring with all of our garden ornaments out of storage.

The rhody on the other side of the door has a robin's nest that we can see out the window. Mama's been sitting on 2 or 3 very blue eggs. Today, it's piled high with snow. If mama's there at all, she's under it. Guess we'll see how that works out.