Vacation!

For the first time since our honeymoon 18 months ago, E and I are going on vacation! Woo Hoo! We're headed to Grand Bahama Island in the.... Bahamas! (Couldn't see that one coming, could you?)

Spring!

For the first time that I can remember, the Robins are agreeing with the Vernal Equinox! Today on my way home I stopped at the mailbox, and there, on the neighbor's lawn across the street, was a Robin. She (OK, I don't know she was a "she", but Mother Nature brings the first day of spring, so...) She was all puffed up, it's a pretty cool, windy day here, but she was there!

Yeah Spring!

This leads me to the other things I was thinking of today: birds, and trees popping.

I've seen a lot of birds returning this week. Tuesday on my way to work, I saw a single Great Blue Heron standing on one of last years nests in the Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge. Which by the way, have you ever seen a Great Blue Heron standing on one of their nests? They nest at the top of the dead trees in a swampy area, they're pretty amazing to see, standing stark against the sky...

Today on the way to work, I saw 2 Canada Geese fly in for a landing on the ice covering the refuge pond. Everybody's returning from their winter habitats.

Two towns over from us, in Ayer, the maple (Acer) trees look ready to burst. The buds are popping, another sign of spring! The maple sugaring season has started, buckets are appearing on trees around the area. Makes me think of sugaring back home, when I was a kid. My mom was the principal sugar-er, she slaved over the stove in the little red barn all day (and sometimes all night, maple syrup waits for no one!) My sister S and I would come home from school and get some yummy maple tea-the combination of almost-maple syrup boiling on the stove, and sap kept in the milk can in the snow bank, combined to just the right temperature to warm you, but not scald. I wonder if I'd still like it today?

Low Carbon Diet

There is an environmental program on NHPR (New Hampshire Public Radio) every weekend called Living On Earth. This is one of the NHPR shows that I listen to every week. On the show this morning, they had a segment on a low carbon diet. This is the sort of diet I can support!

The main idea is to reduce your carbon footprint- the amount of CO2 you help produce by going about your daily lives. If you haven't figured out what your carbon footprint is, you should give it a try. Its amazing how much a single household contributes to global warming. There are many calculators out there:

• Earth Day Footprint Quiz
  
• Carbon Calculator
  
• Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth Carbon Calculator

Once you've calculated your carbon footprint, hopefully you'll want to reduce it! Here are some ideas from the low carbon diet, and some from me:

• Replace incandescent light bulbs with CFL bulbs
  
• Take cloth bags to the grocery store
• Insulate your water heater
• Reduce the time in the shower
• Turn down the thermostat in the winter, turn it up in the summer
• Do laundry in cold water
• Buy energy efficient appliances, and recycle the old ones
• Air dry clothes
• Bike or walk instead of driving
• Grow your own vegies, no transportation needed
• Replace your hot water heater with a Point of Service (POS) water heater
• Only turn on lights if you need them, and turn them off when you're not in the room
• Compost instead of throwing biodegradable material away
• Get food from local farmers markets and farm stands
• Reuse your water glass all day
• Install rain barrels at your gutters for watering plants
• Use drained cooking water to water house plants, the added nutrients are good for the plants
• Carpool

Snowy morning

Mother Nature has decided to show me she's not ready for spring, no matter how many chipmunks are running around. Its snowing again this morning. We were almost able to see the wonderful shingle job we did on the garage-mahal, and now it's covered in white again.

Spring's almost here...

The venal equinox is March 20. But I don't define my seasons based on the movement of the sun. I define them based on the movement of animals.

The first indication that spring is on the way? Chipmunks. They only come out from their near hibernation when they know spring is coming. I've never known them to be wrong. When I see the first chipmunk, I know winter's giving up its last hurrah.

The true indicator of the first day of spring is the Robin. When the Robin is back in the area, spring is here.

I saw my first chipmunk 2 weeks ago. Never mind that there was still 3 feet of snow out our door, I knew spring was almost here. And when E and I were in Cambridge on Sunday, we saw 2 Robins. So spring has made it that far. I give it another week or so before its made its way here.

Mondays

I always have a case of the Mondays. Mondays are so uninspiring. The beginning of the work week, ugh. Tori had it right, I don't like Mondays.

When have Mondays ever been good? When they're holidays! We need more of those...

What is it?

We live in the middle of 8 wooded acres. Its wonderful being surrounded by trees and nature. And often, it produces new and exciting furry critters that E has not seen before.

This morning, as I was reaching for my first cup of java, E said "Look, look, look!" grabbing my shoulder and trying to push me toward the window. I turned with the bleary eyed gaze of the early morning, to see... Nothing. I had just missed "it". E was excited, describing something that "moved like a weasel", but was "bigger than the mink we saw last time". After I had some of my coffee I was able to get E to describe what he saw, and it just might have been a fisher. While I love my wild animals, I'm not as happy to have a fisher around, because they think cats are tasty treats. I'll have to keep a closer eye on 'Mosa and Noki.

Speaking of the kitties, you should meet them. This is Noki, our 6 1/2 year old monkey:

And this is Mamosa, our 10 year old little lady:

And for those that are wondering, no, Mamosa's not named after the drink. My father's a forester, she's named after the tree!

Generations

Migraines are hell. I came home yesterday, shut the double blinds in my room, and went to bed. I must have dozed off, because I woke up and it was blissfully dark out. Of course, that meant that when E and I went to bed at midnight, I couldn't fall asleep. Which led me to thinking about car windows.

My generation says to roll down the window. And we make the hand signal like we're using the manual window crank. What is the next generation going to do? When will people stop remembering that there were manual cranks for windows? Not that these thoughts keep me up at night, but when you're not sleeping, you ponder many weird things. With the amount that I'm awake in the middle of the night, these thoughts are common. Explains a lot, doesn't it?

Eventually I fell asleep and dreamed of white cloud fry. Maybe I should get some more friends for my fishies...