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The first day of spring is not March 20, it’s the day Jen harvests enough asparagus and forages enough morels to make fettuccini with morels, asparagus and parmesan (and a little garlic). This year, that day was May 7, and I would be surprised if any among the multitudes reading this had a better Sunday dinner.

Our cultivated fruit production over the years has been modest, consisting mostly of peaches from the two trees we gave Jen for Mother’s Day in 2012, one of which gave up the ghost a couple of years ago. The two Macoun apple trees we planted have never produced any apples because they are the same species, and therefore will not pollinate. Some things take years to learn. In any event, we have expanded our tiny orchard this year to include some different varieties of apples, a couple of pear trees, and another two peach trees, including a donut peach, a favorite of Sarah’s.

Daisy waits patiently whenever anyone ventures beyond the perimeter of her electric fence, which hasn’t been working for several months.

Not every husband would have the thoughtfulness, foresight, and — let’s face it — courage to get his wife a scythe for Christmas.

Jen, lucky, tried out her scythe this afternoon. After watching a few instructional videos on YouTube, she cleared phragmites from our volunteer willow next to the pond.

Daisy looked on in amazement.

These handsome tulips are blooming in front of the cottage. We didn’t plant these, and we don’t always get to see them before they are munched by the deer.

Winter is not quite done with us yet. We received this scenic dusting overnight, and we are meant to have 13″ of snow on Tuesday.

On Saturday we went for a walk in the woods to look for our resident Barred Owl. We didn’t find the owl, but we did encounter two hikers and their three dogs. After confronting them we realized one was Cricket Lengyel, with whom I overlapped at Colgate and who lives in Rhinebeck. Jen has since patched things up via email.

I’m not sure snowdrops count as harbingers of spring, since, as their name suggests, they appear in winter. The bee at center bottom looks promising however.

Ring-necked Ducks, on the other hand, are reliable harbingers, appearing on the pond for a couple of weeks each early spring. They came early this year.

They were so early, in fact, that they got snowed on this morning.

The Barred Owl is one of those things, like the morels, that have been here the whole time yet took us a long time to see. Not that we never saw the owl – every few years, walking through the woods, we’d startle him and watch him fly off. And we’ve often heard owls at night, both the Barred Owl (“who-cooks-for-you”) and the Great Horned Owl (sonorous hooting along the lines you’d expect). But these days, somehow, we can find the Barred Owl pretty regularly. It’s always a treat to see an owl.

We had our first real snowfall of the season today. It was late in arriving, but very pretty as it came down. Here’s the view this morning from the front door of the cottage.

And here’s the view this afternoon from the back door of the house.

We celebrated the new year in the Kaimal/Lawson’s kitchen. Clockwise are Maya, Jen, Sarah R., Anna, Lucy, Guy, Sophie, and Sarah P. For dinner, Maya made two kormas from her new cookbook, to be published this spring, and we contributed Hopping John. The girls reminisced about the Rhinebeck Fireballs’ epic, Miracle on Ice-caliber victory over the Peekskill Santos. It was a festive evening.

We had a happy Christmas with Jen’s folks.

Sarah’s stocking was brimming, including with this new hat.

Sarah spent many late nights crocheting to create this beautiful blanket for her grandparents.

Jen was a bit less certain about my gift for her, a new scythe, with both grass and brush blades.