Rabbit ears are directional

Spiral Tree Protectors

After 6 years some of the trees are outgrowing the spiral tree protectors. I took some of the spiral protectors off last fall from the largest trees and most of the rest from the 2009 trees this spring. Unfortunately, as a result, one of the last remaining sugar maple saplings was completely girdled by the field mice over winter. But if I don't take them off I am worried that the trees will be choked by the tree protectors themselves. On some of the trees, as in the picture above, the plastic spirals were starting to constrict the growth of the trunk.

Sometimes the tree protectors fail to fully protect the trunk yet the tree is lucky because of some small factor like the stick in the picture below protecting a portion of the trunk, other times they are lucky one year but not the next. Sometimes they will come back and sprout up from below where they were girdled. In that situation the new bark of the sprouts is very attractive to the field mice the next winter. Occasionally the tree is super lucky and the field mice spare one or two just because they can't reach all sides of the sprout.

In the end I'm not sure there is much that can be done for some species of trees except not plant them in a location that is attractive to meadow voles (field mice). It occurred to me today that one might have more success planting sugar maples in a raspberry bush than in an old field.

In Bloom

It broke 30 degrees last week and suddenly everything is in bloom:

• Crab Apple
• Canada Plum
• Dandelions
• Forget-Me-Nots
• Elderberry
• Creeping Charlie
• Daffodil
• Garlic Mustard
• Trilliums
• Bloodroot
• Yellow Rocket
• Violets

Flickers Courting

A couple of common flickers eyeing each other high up in the poplar trees.

Winter twenty steps from Spring

Starlings and Red-Wings are back on the berm telling us it's spring but the northside hasn't got the memo yet.

End of Winter

This winter has been cold; it has stayed below -10C for most of February. The Rideau Canal Skateway was open for a record breaking 59 days this winter but finally closed for the season yesterday. The past three days, with pleasant sunny days melting the snow off the roof and eating away the snow banks along the road, have definitely ended the cold streak. We may have more snow and even more cold weather ahead but it is days like today that let you know that winter has lost its grip.

Deep Freeze

We've been in a deep freeze for about two weeks. We had some freezing rain a couple of weeks ago and we have five or six inches of nice fluffy snow resting on top of the ice layer. Tomorrow it is supposed to briefly go above zero before going back into the deep freeze for the rest of the week.