global warming

It's hard to complain about the consumption of hydrocarbons when I'm reaping the benefits here in Maine with two 70+ degree days in a row in March! I might feel differently if I were an ice fisherman or snowmobiler - two groups of people who spent their winters' extracting personal property from icy water at the bottom of lakes.

The warm weather brings with it the end of sap collecting season. The Giles Family Farm people came by the day before yesterday to remove the sap buckets from our trees and pull out the taps. Fortunately my nieces were here the day before and saw the sap collection process for themselves. Now they know the origins of at least one item on the kitchen table.

The yard work is beginning to show some progress. I've pruned the two larger apples trees to within an inch of their lives, and some raking in various flower beds has exposed all sorts of nascent early spring blooms. New categories of materials to be stored arise, so alongside several different levels of compost, I will need spaces for rocks (big, medium and small), two different types of slate and flat rock, tree branches to be chipped, and the chips I hope to make.

We've mapped out the general shape and location of the patio, and I'll need to order sand and crushed rock, along with the stone itself. My friend Mike has promised to lend me his backhoe, so I will need to learn another dangerous trade (at least for us bookish types).