Between Our Steps: Retreating Snow
Sooner or later, all of winter’s snow does disappear, and we find what has been waiting underneath.
COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTION
Confining snow banks retreat. The first thing to be revealed is garbage. A juice carton blown from last week’s recycling. Plastic containers. A beer can thrown out of a car window. I cannot believe how many I find on Grey Road 1; how many people drink while driving, throwing the evidence onto the road.
When walking the dogs, I pick up a couple of pieces of plastic or metal, take them home to recycle. I can only carry so much, but I will be back. Once the snow is totally gone, I will see the guy with his truck who stops every few meters to clean all the garbage that others let fall over the winter.
Snow banks retreat a little more. I find branches a windstorm broke off. Not all the snow is white now. Grey-brown clumps sit beside the pristine white, evidence of sand that had been spread on the road or the times the plow dug into the berm, carried gravel and grass along with the snow.
Temperatures warm, and rain falls. I find a bag of garbage that was put out the night before pickup, a night that snow fell, a bag that got buried for a month, or more.
Farther along is a piece of rusty metal that I cannot identify. A hub cap that the finder placed by the hydro pole in front of their house. Given how deep in the snow pack it was, the owner has stopped looking for it. Another item for the metal bin at the dump.
Days later, a strip of greenish yellow grass appears. Beside the sidewalk. Beside the road. The banks have melted enough to see the edge of our yard and our neighbours’ yards. A sign of hope, a hint of green and gardens to come.
But the damage done by the plows can now be seen. Places where the turf was dug out by the machine that removed a snowfall. Places where a car drove when the ground was soft. Places where a sidewalk plow caught the edge of a yard. Not too hard to heal, but sources of mud in the meantime.
The last chance to prune apple trees and others is here. Maple sap is running, but soon, other trees will come to life as well. Pruning later will stress the trees. Maybe we were organized and cut back branches in November, as soon as the tree or shrub went dormant. If not, now that we can get to the trees, this is the moment.
Or mark the calendar with reminders for next November and live with their shape this summer.
We watch the snow retreat a little more. Then, in a sheltered place, snowdrops. The first flower of spring. There is hope.
Soon, maybe even by the time this is published, the first leaves of daffodils will break the ground. On a south-facing wall, sheltered from wind, brilliant forsythia blooms will shine. The grass will start to look green.
On a warm afternoon, the first bugs will fly before us. Of course, there have already been lady bugs in the house, but the outdoor insects are still cautious.
In low-lying places where the sun does not reach, patches of snow remain. Elsewhere, bronze leaves litter the yard, lie under the puddles of melted snow in the forest. In the fall, I rake them into the gardens so that land, too, is a particular shade of brown.
I have been taught to leave them where they are for now. Those cautious insects are hiding under the bronze foliage until things warm up more. Where iris roots are hiding, I gently move the leaves aside. For these flowers to flourish, the roots need air and light.
The process of melting snow is pretty well the same every year, though the dates on the calendar vary. Facebook pointed out that five years ago, I had forsythia blooming on March 26th.
Sooner or later, all of winter’s snow does disappear, and we find what has been waiting underneath.
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