Vermont Goes to Africa

Benin, previously known as Dahomey (when it was a French colony and before that an independent empire) and also previously known as The Slave Coast for the obvious unsavory reasons.

Well that title is pretty misleading. The state of Vermont is not going to Africa. I mean, can you imagine squeezing a whole state into an economy class seat for 24 hours of travel? Not a pleasant thought. So Vermont is not going to Africa, but Flatlander is. For a month. To Benin. I have a part time job that takes me to Africa a few times a year. While I'm away I doubt if I get any posts up on the blog. Internet access can be sketchy in Africa, even in major hotels in the capitol, and how surrealistic is a blog about Vermont being posted from Africa? I'm afraid all of this adds up to my depriving you avid fans of Four Seasons in Vermont of any posts for a few weeks. My apologies.

You know its Spring in Vermont when...

There's a new parasol on the deck for eating outside.

The garden has new raised beds that are almost ready for planting. The traditional "plant your garden" day here is May 31st and not having any cold-frames (yet) we stick with that.

The last bit of ice and snow on the pathway to the front door will be gone within 24 hours. (We hope.)

The weather's been nice enough to build a new gate for the garden.

The dogs seem to be tired and wet all of the time from swimming in the pond and the river.

But most importantly, you know it's Spring when yards start to fill up with firewood. It's very important to get your wood early enough so that it has time to dry before heating season starts. There's really no time to lose either. After all, Winter's just around the corner.

Exotic Birds

Our Evening Grosbeak.

Rose Breasted Grosbeak between takes. (Read on and you'll get it.)

Evening Grosbeak in a decent photo.

I know many of you find my bird-watching pastime to be extraordinarily tedious, but no wolves or bears showed up at the house this week, so I am going to write about birds. Beautiful birds as it turns out and more specifically grosbeaks. We have two types of grosbeaks here, the Evening Grosbeak and the Rose Breasted Grosbeak. They are brightly colored and somehow exotic looking, as if they should be living in some tropical rain forest as opposed to the north country here in Vermont. And yet, here they are. They're migratory birds and today was the first time we have seen them back here this Spring. The Evening Grosbeak is so named because they are party birds who get up late and then stay up till all hours eating fermented birdseed and getting sloppy drunk. The Rose Breasted Grosbeak, oddly enough, has a bright red breast. They get a lot of work in nature films playing slaughtered birds shot by careless hunters. Their red breast looks like a gunshot wound, so they don't even need makeup. It's a good gig if you can get it.

Tilly the Turtle

A Snapper Ready for Action

Our snapper Tilly napping at the bottom of the pond in an admittedly poor photo.

When we bought our house, the previous owners told us there was a snapping turtle that lived in the pond. I wasn't convinced for a long time since I walked around the pond a couple of times a day and never saw any sign of a snapping turtle. Then one day last July our daughter-in-law Nancey saw Tilly for the first time. We all got a good look at her as she lolled around the pond and basked on the shore during the next couple of weeks. Finally one day she made a quick meal of Catherine's carefully nurtured water lillies and then disappeared, moving on, we suppose, to one of the other ponds in the area. Snappers apparently can travel pretty good distances overland. I hadn't given her much thought since then until I noticed her sitting on the bottom of the pond during my walk this morning. As you can see from the photo, she had her head hidden under some pond plants, but this was unmistakably our snapper. We now wonder if she didn't hibernate this Winter deep in the mud at the bottom of the pond. We'll never know, but I do know I'm going to put some wire fencing around the two poor water lillies that are trying to come up.