A WEEK OF MELT AND FREEZE, AND BACK AGAIN - BUT A WINK OF SPRING

For the past day the snow has been melting quickly. I always worry about sustaining melts at this time of the year. Although we don’t have a huge amount of snow, it’s enough to create that seasonal malady.....the flood watch. We have had very few instances of high water at Birch Hollow, over the past twenty-two years but there have been nervous times when our neighbors’ problems became our own. We have been unceremoniously awarded all the run-off water they don’t want hanging around their properties. From roof and basements, the run-off water, some of it by actual pump, has been directed toward our modest homestead. I have walked down our backyard path only to be met by shin-high water, building up against the side of our house. Seeing as I have thousands of old books in my archives, any moisture contamination could cost me dearly. So exiting the run-off away from the building is imperative. Acting fast is necessary to avoid the water rising above the concrete block foundation. We are built on a cement pad so we don’t have a basement, as such, to worry about. Once the water passes up over the blocks however, seepage is more than likely to occur.

The problem has been, in the past, that the water starts building up in the hours between midnight and first light. Anticipating the problem, I have to dig trenches in the snow, well in advance, to exit it down the lane, instead of allowing it to pool behind the house; and then draining through our family room. I’ve asked the neighbors if it would be possible to re-direct their respective run-off during the spring melt. They comply for awhile and then, without warning, the hose is re-located, and the tell-tale gurgling tells me I’ve got to start trenching immediately.

I love the early spring. The first warm days when you can hear, outside of the run-off from my neighbors’ pumps, the collapsing layers of shattered crystal-ice. Over in the Bog, you can hear the near-rapids in the little creeks, and what were, days earlier, only fairy-falls, have become rushing torrents, washing through the lowland. You can’t deny the feeling of being gradually unfettered, as if the winter has set the soul free at last. It is the 14th of February, Valentines Day, and yes I forgot about it.....but was reminded just how forgetful I was becoming. Suzanne doesn’t seem upset when I forget about these special occasions.....as long as, before the day is out, I redeem myself as a good husband. We will, as usual, spend the evening here, at Birch Hollow, thanking God we have this wonderful homestead in the Muskoka hinterland......and two young lads, who feel exactly the same.....and cherish the region as their grandparents, and great grandparents before them.

The cats are particularly animated this morning, as an old grey squirrel has been sitting in the bird feeder, nibbling on the leftover seeds of the winter feed. They’re not too sure what to make of the squirrel we call Seymour. They prefer watching the chickadees that come in the morning and then in the early afternoon. Seymour doesn’t really care that he’s being watched. He’s got more important things on the go. The cats eventually turn their backs on the squirrel-kind, and get back to licking paws and scratching.

It hasn’t been a long or particularly cold winter. Certainly not as snow-laden as we have become used to in Muskoka, and the sunshine has been incredible......at a time when we expect it to be overcast and snowy most of the time. It is a great attribute of winter to be sunny, especially for all those with light deprivation issues. Yet no matter how moderate the winter, how much warmer it was than the year before, how little snow, or fewer blizzards, by the middle of February, after a November start at inclement weather, we’re all anxious about the arrival of spring. There is a joyous wonderment when you step out into the warmer air, and hear the constant drip of melt water from the declining snow-cover. It’s easy to wax poetic, about the rejuvenation of our gardens, the lilacs and the raspberry canes outside my office window.

Writing has always been inspired-onward by the arrival of spring. When I was a kid, growing up in Burlington, and then residing in Bracebridge, the spring was the time to be creative.....to get out and explore....seek adventures.....get so many soakers as to drive mom nuts! I loved channeling water as a kid, and all the experience I got in my old neighborhoods, is becoming of considerable use today.

I could sit here all day and write, and never feel constrained or without subject matter. Winter is a great time to muster here, with this excellent view down onto The Bog, and writing, while a witness to countless wind and snowstorms, is like chatting with a friend. It is all so beautiful and compelling.

For more than two decades, the lilacs and raspberry canes in the front garden, have been my harbingers of the seasons. There are still clumps of snow caught up in the lilac arches, and many of the raspberry canes are held down by the snow of the past week. Soon they will rise again and the sun will engage that spectacular restoration of life juices, feeding the buds of May. These plants were rescued from the old family cottage on Lake Rosseau, at Windermere, that was torn down some years back. It had been my wife’s family homestead built by Sam Stripp. We spent the late summer and fall living at the cottage prior to moving to Gravenhurst that cold October. When we moved here, in 1989, I insisted we bring along as many lilacs and raspberry canes as we could, without destroying the integrity of the old cottage property. I brought a few more back, after Suzanne’s father sold the cottage, and later the family home, in the Village of Windermere, following his death. Our property here at Birch Hollow is full of memories, transplanted as live plants on all sides of the house. When I watch out at these garden residents, I think back everso gently, and peacefully, to those other times in our lives, which we cherish in memory.....and watch in actuality, still thriving from the first roots of homestead heritage. It is without question, a poetic comfort to us oldtimers, and we trust our boys, one day, will maintain this plant heritage as well.....and to share with their children the stories of the good old days.

I have been sitting here for the past hour without too much to show for it. My tea is now cold and the cats have moved from the window sill to the pad on the wicker chair at my side. It’s time to take Bosko out for a run......and to listen for a while longer, the joy of the spring melt.....that has come a little early this year.