Still Waiting for Spring

This morning the tide was out far enough to be able to harvest some seaweed for a couple of shade gardens in the walk in tenting side of the park.   If you live near the coast and don’t use seaweed for both mulching and composting you’re missing a golden opportunity. Whatever I heap onto the beds now will decompose by the middle of May and we’ll fork it into the soil. It’s a gooey mess while its rotting but the plants love it for the minerals and moisture retaining properties. Contrary to what seems logical, salt doesn’t seem to be a problem (and we’ve been doing this for about a decade).

What I’m not showing you is that I needed 3 sweaters, a hat, gloves, and scarf just to buffer these cold winds coming off the Bay.  I had been waiting on the seaweed for what seems like weeks thinking we’d get a long enough dry, sunny spell to make the harvesting seem more a pleasure than a chore.  Now that we’re expecting a Nor’Easter to blow in this afternoon and stay until Wednesday, it seemed futile to wait any longer.  The benefit of these rains will be the hastening of the seaweed melt…an odd concept I know.  We haven’t seen the sunshine for long over the past weeks but on a couple of the flower beds I found tender shoots of bee balm, lungwort and 2″ tips of Spring bulbs…I quickly covered them back up with the seaweed…it was like disturbing a sleeping puppy.

Yesterday I was in Camden at a conservation meeting devoted to the future of Sears Island and several of the participants came in from the Islands.  A good bit of time was devoted to how there’d be no moving on and off any of the Islands by this morning and you could see why by 11 today.  The water is foaming, the waves are starting to mount and the seagulls are screaming more than usual.  Everything else seems to be hunkering down for the storm.  Yesterday there were big flocks of robins all through the field but when I came in about 1/2 hour ago the only birds to be seen were the chickadees…I guess I’d better get the bird feeders filled now.

At least the weather is good for knitting!

Astrig