Finally March

For reasons that are not completely clear to me, February seems to be a brutal month.  One of its many storms featured fine dry snow and lots of it.  My lawn tractor mounted snow blower performed admirably but when it was allowed to cool down before refueling something went wrong and it would not restart.  A more than three hundred dollar service call revealed that the air intake for combustion had consumed large quantities of that fine snow.  When it froze the carburetor could not function.  Time with a heat gun solved the problem and taught me how to handle a problem that I had never encountered before.

For days NOAA  held to their forecast of five inches of new snow for us.  Based on that forecast, I contracted for professional snow removal.  The storm began on time and consisted of more of that super fine dry snow.  A professional plow is much less expensive than a service call.  The following day we discovered less than two inches of new snow on the ground.  I could have cleared that with a hand pusher but would not back away from the planned plow.  Now the driveway is clear in many spots with bright sunlight working to finish that job.

We simply felt compelled to get outside.  Except for the lane, everything was buried under new snow.  We walked through the snow to the site of a pending project.  The wire cage marks the location of two transplanted Arbutus plants placed near an old white pine tree.  The fallen down stone wall straddles the property line.  As the pine tree grew it pushed the stone wall aside.  The plan is to restore the straight line edge of the wall on my side while preserving the curved wall across the property line.  A neatly stacked pile of stones stands ready to help build new wall.  Many more stones will be needed but at least we have a start.  In time Arbutus growing against a stone wall should be beautiful but we need to get started on this project.  At this time of year sunlight warms the ground here and it usually clears before the garden thaws.  Perhaps this will be the year when restoring the original southern line of the wall actually happens.