
After our November trip to Georgia, we anticipated settling into the slower pace of winter. The dream of leisurely days was knocked upside the head by the introduction of a third dog—a young powerhouse of love and curiosity, eager to wiggle her way into our pack.

Our new girl, Scout, was at home here from the minute she stepped foot in the door. At just a year old, she was already well-trained and the most eager-to-please dog we have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Capp was a little hesitant over the rambunctious intruder, but soon warmed up and they are now fast friends.

Alice, on the other hand, remains above it all, surveying her domain from her couch-ly throne, watching Capp and Scout’s tug-of-war destruction of toy after toy.

Alice just turned nine and George aptly calls her Empress of Wheelhouse.

Along with making all the dogs happy through the transition, we dealt with Scout’s first heat—always a little tension-inducing when it brings the coyotes to howling in our lower woods—and the challenge of trying to keep her activity down after she was spayed two weeks ago. It was a very dog-centric winter.

To complicate things, dog-wise, we had an unwelcome tenant under our front stoop. After a mid-winter snowstorm, animal tracks appeared—something was clearly living right under our doorstep.

We thought at first it might be a fox, but George’s inspection discovered a porcupine. We have always had porcupines in our woods and they like to snack on the white pines along the edge of our property.

But they have always stayed far from the house and outside of the fence. Much as we like them from a distance, we cannot have one (or more) living right under our front door—not with three dogs.

Although we tried to eject it with numerous methods, it not only was unfazed, but became even more bold, coming inside the fence. So, sadly, it has crossed over the prickly rainbow bridge and we are trellising the front stoop that no other animals can camp under there.

Adding to that excitement, the winter weather swung wildly from ridiculously warm, to ice storms,

to balmy, to snow.

We stayed snug by the fire and focused on indoor projects.

George ripped out the old shelving in our mud room and constructed beautiful shelves and cupboards out of some strikingly-grained ash that he jointed and planed from rough cut lumber.

For me, winter is a time to contentedly focus on spinning and weaving. I wove dishtowels

and some linen and cotton fabric for a dress and skirt.

I sewed a jacket from yarn that I had spun,

naturally dyed, and woven,

which is almost blindingly bright—belying all those who say natural dyes produce only dull browns and yellows.

Likewise the two highly colored rugs

I wove out of odds and ends of my handspun and naturally dyed wool.

I am enjoying doing more complicated patterns on my Leksand bandloom.

My favorite project, though, is one currently on my loom because it is all handspun singles—warp and weft—which produces cloth with a wonderful feel.

Most yarn is plied, two or more single-spun yarns twisted together, which is stronger and easier to weave, but I prefer singles and only recently felt confident enough to use my handspun singles as warp. So far, so good. I am delighted with it.

The dogs enjoyed a few winter beach visits,

where, after her initial amazement at the quality of water, Scout took to swimming like the Lab she is.

We had a few rounds of family visits,

including last week when our granddaughters stayed with us and we had beautiful spring weather to enjoy Mt. Battie

and the Rockland breakwater.

Through all this, though, our ongoing, all-consuming project was a total redesign of the vegetable gardens.

The past few years, I was becoming increasingly frustrated by all the weeding I had to do in the very wide walkways between the raised beds. I actually enjoy weeding the beds themselves, which is usually relatively quick and easy. But the walkways seem to attract the really deep-rooted, nasty, hard-to-dig-out variety of weeds that stubbornly return again and again, no matter how much mulch is there.

We also had no way of getting the tractor in the garden, so delivering and spreading mulch and compost was time and labor intensive. We reconfigured both gardens with a wide tractor-way in the middle and narrower walkways between the beds.

Less weeding and easier access. This meant a tremendous amount of work for George. Because many of boards in the raised beds were rotting out, George decided to rebuild all of them.

Once they were done, the fun part was renting an excavator for a day to help with the dirt work.

It was an exhausting day, but by the end, all the beds were in place and ready for planting.


George also built new gates, which look art-deco-ish to me. I love them.

The gardens are now ready for the season, but I must wait for the soil to heat up some more before most things can go in.

It has been a cold, slow spring. But, we are feasting on asparagus and the flax, peas, spinach, and lettuce are up.

The greenhouse is full of seedlings and a bed of mushrooms that I’m hoping to grow in there this summer.

Aside from working on the garden project, George has been steadily clearing trees below the house to keep our view open and for firewood. He came upon this nest of eggs last week, on the ground right near our trail.

We have stayed away (good camera lens for the photo), but I believe it is a Ruffed Grouse nest—her camouflage is amazing.

While I am itching to dig into the gardening season, full of plans and experiments, I am mourning our peaches and cherries.

Our wildly fluctuating weather this winter—especially a spell of way below zero weather (with wind) in February—decimated the developing peach and cherry blossoms. I may even lose a few trees. My sweet cherry tree is covered in empty blossoms—open with nothing inside—

with just a lonely handful that survived.

The peach tree blossoms are just dead buds and sparse leaves. It will be a peach-less summer. The good news is that all of my pears are blooming, two trees for the first time.

We are supposed to get a frost tomorrow night, so fingers crossed they are not affected. Peaches, cherries, and plums have been hit hard all over New England, so I should not complain. At least, I am not a farmer dependent on a crop for my livelihood. But I will miss my peaches and cherries this year.

Our bulbs are thriving and everything (aside from the peaches and cherries)

is blooming.

After a satisfying and productive winter, bring on the frenzy of summer.
