Last night's freezing rain and hail sent a crack down one of our large elms. A heavy limb came crashing to the ground near the chicken coop. It ruffled the hens tremendously and sent me out into the wind in my robe...crunching on the ice amidst the clacketing of frozen twigs and branches.

It was bewildering to see Nature so callous towards her poor trees!

The farmer know by heart what an insouciant wench she can be at times....and when he is in the mood she rarely is. We only just yesterday transferred a good portion of newly germinated seedlings to the heated hoophouse, as if attempting to cajole Spring into making an earlier appearance.

Maple sugaring weather has wakened me to the secret lives of trees...and last night's cracking branch catapulted me into the realization that I had been unconsciously eyeing their forming buds, imagining their flowing sap, and wondering over their life cycles for sometime now. It signals the coming growing season when the farmer finds himself being gently tuned to the soon to be green world around him.

He becomes rather like a hen...marshaling his seeds and seedlings, fields, and woodlots beneath the proverbial wing; ruffled now and then by a Mother Nature in the birth pangs of another Spring.