Spring time in Maine
Our dog, Hershey, sitting on her house with snow all around her.
I heard the weatherman say tonight that the official start of spring is this Wednesday at 7:02 am. Around here, in Maine, it’s when we expect the days to really start to warm up and for most of the winter storms to be over. If you’ve lived in Maine for long than you know that this is what we call mud season, our 5th season. Which is then followed closely by our 6th season, black fly season, and then by summer. Most of our big winter storms are over and the days get warm creating mud all around us. Then our nights dip down below freezing ensuring that we will have fresh mud for the next day. The frost heaves are at their peak during mud season and start to slowly become just bumps in the road by summer time. Rumor has it that in certain areas of the state that some of the frost heaves can get as high as a small mountain and riding on some of our spring time roads are not for the faint of heart. For me the best part of this time of the year is that it’s sap time. We used to make our own maple syrup from trees that we had tapped and then boil the sap down until we had delectable maple syrup to enjoy the rest of the year. As much as I enjoyed doing that I have to admit it is much easier to buy it from someone else. In the last few years we have had major sap houses popping up all around us and probably have at least 10 maple operations in a 15 mile radius around our house.
Unfortunately according to the weatherman tonight we should be bracing for 12 to 18 inches of snow on Tuesday and then, for the next week, for temperatures to be 10 to 15 degrees below normal for us at this time of the year. On the bright side the weather should help all of those maple syrup operations with the perfect weather for them, mid-thirties during the day and below freezing at night. Which also means that we will be having a longer mud season this year. I’m hoping for a real short black fly season this year. Well, Mother Nature, what do you think? Can you make that happen for me?
- Kim Dailey
