Sap Is Running

As proven by the stump of this recently removed terrace tree. The roots continue to do their job although no superstructure remains to accept the sap.

The old black maple alongside the driveway also knows spring has arrived and is enthusiastically sugar coating the truck.

Spars…

…for the RC Schooner.

In the photo above—from top to bottom, horizontal—foresail gaff, jib boom, foresail, boom, attached by means of a gooseneck to the foremast (which is more or less vertical), and then the main mast, attached by means of a gooseneck to the main boom (which is more or less vertical). If you please, notice the spar tapers, the boom bails, and the handcrafted goosenecks. Fiddly work, requiring a steady hand and nerves of steel.

Big Melt…

…snow mostly gone. Maybe a little early, but it does feel good.

A Hillside Thaw

Robert Frost

To think to know the country and now know
The hillside on the day the sun lets go
Ten million silver lizards out of snow!
As often as I've seen it done before
I can't pretend to tell the way it's done.
It looks as if some magic of the sun
Lifted the rug that bred them on the floor
And the light breaking on them made them run.
But if I though to stop the wet stampede,
And caught one silver lizard by the tail,
And put my foot on one without avail,
And threw myself wet-elbowed and wet-kneed
In front of twenty others' wriggling speed,- 
In the confusion of them all aglitter,
And birds that joined in the excited fun
By doubling and redoubling song and twitter,
I have no doubt I'd end by holding none.

It takes the moon for this. The sun's a wizard
By all I tell; but so's the moon a witch.
From the high west she makes a gentle cast
And suddenly, without a jerk or twitch,
She has her speel on every single lizard.
I fancied when I looked at six o'clock
The swarm still ran and scuttled just as fast.
The moon was waiting for her chill effect.
I looked at nine: the swarm was turned to rock
In every lifelike posture of the swarm,
Transfixed on mountain slopes almost erect.
Across each other and side by side they lay.
The spell that so could hold them as they were
Was wrought through trees without a breath of storm
To make a leaf, if there had been one, stir.
One lizard at the end of every ray.
The thought of my attempting such a stray!