Somehow a year has slipped by since my last posting here. To comfortably wander the Bluecircle with camera and no gloves in mid-January is unusual, but unusual is a good word for the intermittent Winter of 2023. Paw Paw Lake is essentially ice-free and a few people brought lawn chairs to fish from Smitty’s pier.

There have been few sunny days but the snows of November and the Christmas blizzard drifts have quietly slipped away.

The soft green landscape that remains invites a walk on the trails and some early planning of April work. Many poplars planted in the first phase of the farm are large enough to be harvested for firewood as their tops die off. Several will need to be removed and replaced with new firs or pines.

The long shadows of the season forecast snow is still ahead, but this week the deer can graze without pruning the bark and tops of tender conifers. The first flowers of Spring are here already!