My First New England Winter

I’ve heard this winter is mild. I’ve also been told that they haven’t had a snow like we had about a week ago in decades. It seems likely that both are equally true. About a week and a half ago was the first time I’d ever been in snow higher than maybe a foot, I believe, and we probably topped out at maybe 2 1/2 ft deep after the third solid snow in a few days. I realize there are many places in the world that have much more snow, much more regularly, but my experience with solid winters is somewhat limited, and the places I’ve lived that have a full four seasons still are relatively mild most of the time – Virginia, Maryland, Germany, Belgium, Indiana – so this is the first place that I think even semi-regularly gets down below zero a few times a winter. This winter, though, I know the ice skating rink in town hasn’t even been able to open yet because it keeps warming up above freezing so often they aren’t maintaining enough ice for it to be safe. Guessing that rules out ice fishing for a great many people – the little one has expressed interest in ice fishing with Nate, so we’ll add that to the to do list once we’re in town full time.

The drifts of snow were gorgeous – like clouds. They were also hilarious, because they were fluffy and full after first falling and every time we lost our balance, catching yourself on the thing immediately in front of you basically just resulted in you falling further and further as you grasped at something akin to airy piles of powdered sugar. The first time I let myself fall backwards into the snow, Gilly from the top of the hill exclaimed, “Oh no! We have to help mama!” much like she thought that the sled we tried to take down the hill that sank into the snow was being lost forever akin to a sinking ship. A tragic moment for her, but hilarious for everyone else.

Today we’re sitting at a high of 11° and a low of -16° which if the air was still wouldn’t actually be that unbearable with layers and gloves – but the windchill is what makes it dangerous – wind chills as low as -45°. I’m mildly annoyed that Nate will have a day off that we can’t spend up at the house working on much of anything, but really this is the first day we’ve not worked purely because of the weather. Next week we’ll be back into perfectly wonderful 40° days with slightly below freezing nights. Guess that else that means? It’s almost tapping time!!

We did some walking on the day the cottage was put up (something updated elsewhere but not here, maybe I’ll toss some pictures up at the end of the cottage) to an area of the property we had not explored fully yet and discovered a few things. We found another well, this one within sight of our north-western neighbor – we had walked within 15 feet of this previously when following the property line to find the corner of the property in this area, but didn’t notice it. It’s a gaping one, seems like it would have water more often throughout the year than some of the others and constructed beautifully. What this means is that it’s a clean drop in and it definitely needs a good cover or well house built over it. The other thing we were looking for in our wanderings through the woods was sugar maples. While we’re not confident that all the maples we identified are sugar maples – we do have some red maple as well – there was a large number of tappable maples in this area as well as – insert gasp of excitement here – birches! I learned about birch syrup some years ago, have never tried it, but am a big fan of birch beer, and while I’m sure the modern version is probably nothing like the original and I know this is made with the root, if birch syrup has any of the flavor profile that birch beer has in comparison to other sweeteners, I really want to make some. We have little stands of birch here and there, but we found enough 8″ and larger trees to tap that I think we should be able to make at least an okay amount of birch syrup. Because we haven’t finished insulating the cottage yet and we don’t have a solid heat source in it yet (though we do have a perfectly sized wood stove for the space) this likely will mean a good deal of driving back and forth to collect and boil down sap for syrup. I hadn’t figured for sap season to be the need for any kind of sabbatical, but it may make for a very tired me.

The warmer days coming up mean we can finally finish the digging in the well room as things thaw during the day and hopefully put the beefy sills in that have been sitting out back under tarp and snow for a few weeks now. The plumber also said we should wait a few weeks to do the new connection to the septic in the well room/old laundry room, but a few weeks seems like good timing to me.

The task that is going to be the most obnoxious, expensive, and require a great deal of heavy lifting for Nate and I is installing some measure of deer fencing around where we will have the orchard. It’s possible that my reasoning is poor and the deer will in fact just waltz right around the fence into the orchard, but I do think that having to travel the fairly steep ditch and the road in order to do so would be a deterrent. The fence would be 8′ tall and maybe halfway around the sharp curve of the field to the lone oak tree standing in the middle near the road, and then at the woods edge almost all the way across the property where the trees were cut, and then wrap around the front until we run out of trees near the front of the house. It would not coincide with the property line except by the orchard field and maybe the front east side of the house because we’re likely using trees as living fence posts and it would be too difficult to put the fence along the stone wall and maintain the stone wall. The goal is large animal deterrent, not property marking, though there are a few spots where the property line could use some freshening up. The rolls of fence aren’t even the 8′ tall ones, I figured out that without a tractor, that would be nearly impossible for us to do, and the terrain doesn’t lend itself to that well. We’ll have to use 330′ rolls of 47″ high woven wire and make sure the spacing is such that it reaches 8′ tall. The real struggle is going to be that rough and likely muddy terrain while carrying rolls of fence that weigh 192 lbs a roll. So wish us luck with all that. Hopefully it’s not the kind of thing that will need to be entirely redone anytime soon since it is at least theoretically a pretty sturdy fence. Planning for a gate into the woods in a few places, but some of them haven’t been plotted out yet and I probably shouldn’t wait much longer on that. As I’ve been told, the time goes fast and the Spring and Summer fly and the aquatic waterfowl had better get lined up ahead of time to get things done when they need to be.

If we want to actually have fence up before fruit trees go in, this needs to probably get done in the next few weeks. This will be a bigger front loaded burden on us, but hopefully reduce the burden down the line when we don’t have to individually fence each tree that goes in. Then again, if deer pressure is way higher than I think and they just jump it, then it may not matter at all, but the plan is to seed some things for them out in the woods so hopefully they have incentive to stay back in the woods since there is a water source and will hopefully be enough food sources that they don’t need to come check out the farmyard.

I know we’re just now in the middle of winter, but somehow even with the -6° weather outside right now I can feel it ending, realizing I spent far less of the winter knitting than I thought I would and a great deal more doing the labor to build the life we are wanting. I’m okay with this, I’ll have other winters to really hunker down and just knit while buried in wool once we’re in our place. For now there is less hunkering and more hustling to get things done and get into our place and this is, like winter, just the season we are in right now.