Finally, we seemed to get the greenhouse right. We figured how to sew zippers onto plastic sheets so they wouldn’t rip. Yes, there is more than a foot of snow on the ground, but in the middle of February the days are already getting longer, and any weakness of the southerly sun is generously forgiven by the bright snow, so we’re in a soft white all-encompassing light even on a cloudy day, of which the Southern Tier of New York has many. We could look forward to getting some early greens in the ground under the protection of the greenhouse.
But March is crazy. And I had been lazy, and was punished for it.
The power company had sent out an email warning of high winds on the first of March. I hadn’t read it as meant for people who neglect to plant greenhouse posts a foot into the ground.
But today the snow is melting, the wind doesn’t bite, and a walk on the land cures many ills. Water has come alive everywhere, telling me of gentle grades of land imperceptible to the naked eye. At the back of the property, the impromptu stream flowing down the ATV track to otherwise landlocked parcels suddenly takes a westward turn to become wetland, still flowing, gently, inevitably into the stream that my neighbor uses down the hill to clean his maple sap lines. The entire logic of the land here seems to feed the stream, a trickle here, a gush there. Its own little watershed. But what could become of the wetland? Deepened a little to encourage waterfowl to linger to be shot? Or deepened yet more to make a pond to feed the rest of the land? Could I nudge it somehow to my advantage?
It’s too early for such dreams. It’s even too early for spring. It’s not even the equinox yet; we could get a foot of snow in April; and a frost in May could kill any early greens bereft of a greenhouse.