Essay | Fool’s Spring

AMHERST TOWNSHIP, FILLMORE COUNTY — Each year I anticipate the annual winter break from the outdoor homestead to-do list. Once buttoned down for the winter, most projects can wait until spring – except for the bare minimum daily and weekly chores for the outdoor critters.

After the holidays, my precious weekends aren’t so hectic. I can sit and enjoy my morning coffee a little longer and even take the time to flip a few chocolate chip pancakes onto the plates of the hungry indoor critters.

I’ll plan next summer’s projects, sketching out designs for new fencing, building improvements or plantings and then tally up what supplies I’ll need. Planning the summer family road trip and outlining our top destinations is even more exciting.

When the weather isn’t bitter cold, I’ll take advantage by catching up on some firewood gathering or splitting. The sun setting early is a good hint to take it easy and call it a day well before supper.

So, when spring weather shows up in the middle of February, forgive me for not being as excited as the average Minnesotan.

A fifty-degree weekend in February! It can’t be squandered. Apple trees need to be pruned, raspberry canes trimmed back and barns tidied up after months of neglect. It’s time to decide if those outdoor Christmas decorations are going to come down or stay up until next year. Most importantly, there’s finally a chance to wash the cars!

Washing cars in the spring for anyone living on a gravel road in the country is futile. A quarter mile down the driveway and it will be limestone beige all over again. But I know road salt hides in the cracks and crevices and must be extracted. It’s another chore where the kids can begin to better pull their weight around here. Everybody loves spraying the garden hose, so they all get a turn.

More to come for the Schieber family…highway cleanup tops the list of early spring must-do projects, followed by prescribed burning of last year’s prairie growth. (Photo by Greg Schieber)

The kids, joyfully unburdened by any to-do list, make the best of it. Basketballs are bouncing, bikes are being pulled out of storage, sidewalk chalk starts to color in the concrete as the snow and ice quickly recede. I even wondered if I should set up the trampoline. Nah, it’s only fool’s spring.

Toward afternoon’s end, I announce to the crew that we are going for a walk in our woods. At the far end of the hayfield, we spring open the gate and venture across the carpet of damp leaves, covered by snow mere days ago, toward the bluff edge.

Some parts grow so thick during the summer that it feels like an entirely different world to be traversing so easily and unencumbered. The ribbons I placed on our maples last fall held tight throughout the winter. No guesswork this spring when I tap trees for sap.

I have a chance to better survey the fallen timber from the past summer’s windstorm, making note of which ones are worthy for the woodstove.

We carry on and scoot down into the ravine, following it toward the base of the bluff where the south fork of the Root River flows. I’ve made this hike numerous times, but it was the first for the kids. An old, galvanized stock tank, now wrapped around a fallen tree, is an out-of-place landmark along the route.

Together with an occasional tree consuming the rusty remnants of a barbed wire fence, it is the only evidence cattle once roamed these woods. I would guess the tank was kept full by a pipe pounded into the hillside, tapping a small spring somewhere further up the ravine.

A local farmer told me that many decades ago our dead-end township road used to continue, following this same ravine down to a bridge that crossed the creek. If true, no signs remain of anything remotely resembling a roadway or a bridge for that matter. Time and water have completely erased both.

Whether it’s hiking trails, gathering firewood or just soaking up some rays, a winter thaw lures people AND critters from their winter abodes. (Photo by Craig Johnson)

At the river, we discovered a stick-built beaver dam holding back the water and creating a calm pool. Signs of deer overwintering beneath the cedar trees abounded. We explored a little in the river bottoms before following a deer trail back up the slippery bluff. I carried Iris, our fifteen-month-old, the entire distance so I could get the full body workout.

I made a promise to myself to return more frequently throughout the seasons.

Despite the self-inflicted pressure to make efficient use of these unseasonably warm days, both for work and play, it was a relief to be outside, in the sun, only needing a sweatshirt for warmth. It would be a shame not to enjoy it since we all know this mid-February warm weather is temporary.

Almost certainly the snow will come again, and all outdoor projects will sputter to a halt until the next thaw, or the one after that.

I hope so, at least. I have more winter relaxation and planning to do.