Timberdoodle Nights

If you've never seen a woodcock's display flight, you're missing out on one of the delights of early spring.  A woodcock is basically a misplaced sandpiper, a shorebird hundreds of miles from the ocean. Somewhere along the evolutionary turnpike, he traded the sunscreen and beach towels for the forest floor, poking his long beak into the soil and pulling up earthworms instead of marine amphipods.  But that's not the incredible thing about a woodcock. The male's mating display is both fascinating and comical.  It starts on the ground, making a funny "peent" noise every few seconds.  Then, it takes off in this crazy circular flight, round and round in big circles rising hundreds of feet in the air, twittering all the time.  Finally it reaches its apex and then plummets back to earth erratically, almost like a falling leaf, landing within a few feet of where he started from.  And then back to peenting. Rinse and repeat.

We have a woodcock displaying in the field in front of our new house.  Amazingly, we've had a woodcock display every spring at the past three places we've lived.  Almost like the little bugger has been following us. Even though we can watch the action from home, we headed out on a woodcock walk with Aiden's young birders club this weekend in Concord.  Sometimes it's more fun to watch with others.  And the woodcocks, a.k.a. timberdoodles, bog suckers, or mud bats, didn't dissappoint.  Right at dusk we had at least 5 birds peenting and displaying around us, and we were able to get within 30 feet of where one was peenting from, getting good looks at him with binoculars as the sun set and the stars were starting to shine through.  Haley was so happy to just be outside on a warm night without a jacket that she was dancing around like a woodcock herself, entertaining the human flock.  Aiden tried really hard to get video of the flight displays, but the light conditions are such that you can barely keep track of the crazy flight path with just your naked eye.  But still, "That. Was. Awesome," he said as we got in the car.

The kids and I traveled north to vermont to visit the Kennedys in their new abode for the rest of the weekend.  We definitely miss those Kennedys, but their new place is almost amazing enough to just make us glad we'll be able to enjoy visiting them for years to come.  They have acres of open fields, panoramic mountain views, barn stalls to raise animals, access to an amazing apple orchard, and a lovely house too.  The kids especially loved playing at the "Kennedy farm" with snakes and baby chicks and dead deer skulls...and are already asking to go back.  And, thank goodness, they have a woodcock too.

Still Done with Winter... But I Think its Finally Dead!

Well, it's been about a month since my last post.  We've had egg hunts, made gingerbread bunny houses, had outdoor bonfires, been to karate tournaments, and visited sugarhouses, but until 2 days ago, the weather has stayed about the same: mid-February Frozen.  This feels like it has been the longest winter ever.  

Easter came in three stages- first, we went to the Cameron's house to make gingerbread bunny huts with the cousins.  As usual, way too many peeps were consumed, but it's always a fun time.  Then, the weekend before Easter, we attended the town egg hunt on the green in a snowstorm.  This was comical, as the eggs were really in danger of being covered over by the big fat flakes falling from the sky, so everyone was thankful the hunt was as fast and furious as ever.  They advertise in the local paper that the hunt starts at 9:30 sharp, and they mean it.   If you show up at 9:02, good luck finding an egg!  Aiden was sort of embarrassed to be there since he thinks the egg hunt is for "little kids" even though the rec director assured him that kids 9 and under were welcome to fill their basket.  In the end, he settled for just a couple of eggs, you know... a cool amount.  Haley and Ellis went whole hog.

The weekend before Easter was also the maple sugaring open house weekend, so we visited two sugarhouses in Warner to celebrate the season.  First though, lunch at the Foothills Diner, where they have sticky buns, burgers and whoopie pies all the size of your head.  It was good to steep ourselves in some maple steam for a few hours, and see what the maple syrup producers were thinking of this long, cold winter. By the end of March, they hadn't had much sap to boil yet, but were hoping for a good season extending well into April.  

 Skiing continues.  What else to do when the ground is still covered with snow?  No cleaning up the yard and driveway yet.  No gardening.  So, might as well go skiing.  We went to Ragged on a sunny day in late March and the kids found no fewer than 4 friends each to share the day with.  It seemed like every time we turned around another NL family was waving hello and heading up the lifts with us.

 On Easter week we hosted an outdoor fire after work with friends on the first really nice day of Spring.  There was plenty of snow on the ground still, but it was almost 50 degrees and we could enjoy the evening without mittens and hats at least.  Aiden wore just a t-shirt, but 8 year old boys are impervious to cold, and he was the only one that crazy.  We roasted smores and some people had a tour of Grandma Sally's new house while the kids ran around with frisbees and nerf guns in the field.  A summer simulation in the dying winter.

We watched Aiden perform at a karate tournament in southern NH next, and he did very well.  This was his first time "sparring" opponents in an actual competition and he won several rounds.  Then, finally, the third part of Easter- Easter Day itself.  We dyed eggs with Grandma Sally, and then Micah, Becky, Phoebe and Fisher came over for an egg hunt and a big Easter lunch.  The whole family toured Grandma's new house, and we had peep chocolate truffle pie for dessert!

And this brings us to the arrival of "real" spring, which just showed up yesterday on April 12th.  It was finally warm and sunny, but with all the snow still on the ground, I'm sure you can guess what we did.  Yup.  We hit the slopes for one last day.  The snow was like granular butter, but there's still tons of it, and we could ski in just our long underwear so everyone was smiling.  Haley wore a tutu and wings for apres ski on Mt Sunapee's "beach" (she wouldn't wear them skiing because, "Mom, everyone will look at me and say I'm so cute.  I hate that!").  It was hard to get up out of our lawn chairs and leave the beautiful sun behind at the end of the day, I can tell you that.  But we made it home to splash in puddles, play basketball, and let the chickens out to pick their way between the shrinking snow piles.  Today, it was warm enough (just barely) to eat dinner outside.  I think we may have turned the corner.