Was Today Our Spring?

Land o' Goshen, we had a day today that would almost make one think spring had, at long last, arrived in the North Woods. A temp of 52 in the shade and 72 (wow!) out on the south side of the house where it was super sunny. Now if only the forecast didn't look so unpleasant. Rain tonight with rain all day tomorrow, turning to a rain/snow mix in the evening. The same rain/snow mix for Sunday and Sunday night. Ugh.

But we enjoyed the great weather today and took advantage of it. We spent the last half of the afternoon pruning the fruit trees.

You can see we've got a few patches of green grass showing although most of the yard area is still brown. (But at least it's not covered with snow!) The trees are just barely starting to bud out. Last year, the apple trees were in full blossom four weeks from today. But we had an early spring last year . . . a whole lot different than this year.

In this shot you can see the barren raised beds in the background. Past my left shoulder is the strawberry patch still wearing its winter blanket of evergreen boughs. Because we're still getting freezing temps at night, I'm hesitant to uncover them yet. It's the warm temps during the day followed by freezing at night that can harm them.

My husband was being recalcitrant and wouldn't let me take pictures of him today to illustrate our method for pruning. I loped off branches half way up the trees and he took care of the upper portion. It worked pretty well and we got the trees done lickety-split. Only thing is we were slovenly and didn't pick up the pruned branches but just let them fall where they may. That's a job for another day. When it's not raining. Or snowing.