Walkabout, Presque Isle, ME — What I saw in my backyard Monday morning was a perfect picture of the season — or, what we here in The County think of as early spring, anyway: snow still blankets the area, but it’s dark and honeycombed, melted enough to reveal bits and pieces of our familiar backyards.
I looked out in the yard Monday to see, on the old piece of fence that has reappeared, a large orange tabby perched on the very top of one of the posts. It looked precarious, with all four feet settled around a pointed picket, but somehow, as cats always do, the creature looked nonchalant as it lifted first one side of its face, then the other, to the morning sun.
Visitors enjoy a sunny Maine Maple Sunday March 26 at the Maple Moose in Easton. (Staff Photo/Paula Brewer)
Though southern portions of the state were hit with double-digit snowfall Saturday, we in the north escaped that April fool this year. The sun is warm, and though forecasters say snow is coming this week it’s supposed to be tempered with rain, which will take more of the remaining white stuff with it. April snows do that — which is a welcome thought.
Here’s another: green things are growing, however slowly. Some people watch for crocuses to poke out of the snow; I watch the violets. Believe it or not, there they are, tiny green leaves becoming visible about a quarter to a half-inch now above the uncovered mulch.
At the Maple Moose in Easton during Maine Maple Sunday, March 26, Tom Peary mans the taffy-on-snow process, drizzling thick maple syrup onto the snow, letting it freeze to the right consistency and winding it on sticks for waiting visitors. (Staff Photo/Paula Brewer)
Amid all this, the warmish days and cold nights are, of course, perfect for maple sap to flow. Maple producers around the state celebrated the annual Maine Maple Sunday on March 26, 2017 — in some cases making it a weekend-long event.
At Easton’s Maple Moose that Sunday, people descended in large numbers. Cars filled the road and the driveway, and people of all ages seemed happy to be enjoying the sun.
Owners C.J. and Jodi King and family were busy tending to the crowd in the shop and beverage trailer, explaining the sap collection and boiling process, and giving sugarbush tours.
In another corner of the yard, people lined up for the popular taffy-on-snow process as Tom Peary drizzled lines of syrup onto pans of snow and let folks wind the freezing confection on sticks.
Visitors milled about, enjoying signature treats like maple-drenched homemade corn fritters, maple cotton candy and — my new favorite — maple coffee.
It all added up to one of the first rites of spring, as the snow begins to give up its hold on the ground — and our senses.
Not to mention, the critters are back. Neighborhood cats pick their way through the yards more easily, squirrels paw around for their pre-winter stores, a whiff of skunk occasionally permeates the evening air — and then there are the crows. There they are, every garbage collection morning, perched on top of bags, canvassing the neighborhood, cawing, dive-bombing, bickering to prove who is king of the (garbage) hill.
Ah, spring — after this long winter, even the crows look good.
