Be Fooled or Be Thankful! March 2024

February sure leapt past me into March, but you could have fooled me!  I was ready for March to roar in like the proverbial lion, shaking its thick mane in gusty winds and showing its snowy white fangs in freezing temps. Oh no.  Instead, March frolicked in like a lamb, wagging its scampy tail in the April-like showers and almost 60-degree temps. Looks as if March is masquerading as an April lamb, complete with April’s fooling behavior. 
 
The plants in Topsmead’s Butterfly Garden are not fooled.  They live out in the field subject to the winds of winter and are smartly hunkering down awaiting the longer days that trigger their pushing up through the earth and into the light. Nor are the plants in the cottage gardens fooled; they, too, are hunkering down, although one Hemerocallis, feeling a bit more courageous in the protective embrace of its stone walls, is peeking greenly through last year’s growth to test March’s intent. 
 
Likewise, let us not be fooled.  Keep those snowshoes, cross-country skis, and winter parkas out for the mid-March snowstorm predicted by The Farmer’s Almanac.  After all, it is New England…!
 
In the meantime, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), the state agency that maintains Topsmead State Forest, has been taking advantage of February’s thaw and March’s foolery to do some tree and house maintenance.  Freshly cut limbs scattered beneath the flowering trees on the cottage lawn and fresh yellow saw cuts offer evidence of DEEP’s seasonal tree pruning. The silhouette of Miss Edith’s cottage is checkerboarded with scaffolding on its south side to allow access to the roof area around the great room chimney which is swathed in green and black plastic. Thank goodness, because leaks in the slate roofing have been sending water streaks down along the inside stonework of the great room fireplace as well as down stonework on the other side of the chimney in Miss Edith’s office. The middle chimney, which services the fireplace in the front hall and several more in the upstairs bedrooms, is swathed in blue plastic, awaiting its repairs. 
 
Miss Edith took several business courses after high school, as her father, Henry Sabin Chase, wisely advised. Combining that training with her organizational expertise, she managed the finances and organized the maintenance of Topsmead’s house and farm, often doing business at her desk table in front of her cottage office window.  I, too, have my desk in front of a cottage office window.  I fancy that, with her love of nature, being able to look out at the Litchfield landscape lightened the load of doing paperwork for Miss Edith, just as it does for me, especially as tax time looms next month.  Perhaps I owe thanks to March for feeling like April, but not being April yet!
 
Margaret Hunt
BlogMistress