The Would-Be Farm: Late Spring This Year

A long winter, a late spring.

​We arrived at the Would-Be Farm a week or so early this year.

​Early by the season, if not the actual calendar.

Not even the hint of buds on the trees, lakes still frozen, plenty of snow still on the ground, and a solid weekend of ice-storm.

The shape of the land shows like the ribs of a hungry animal this early in the spring.
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Waiting for the arrival of spring, Mr. Linton and I blazed a couple of new trails. It's easier to make a way without having to part that modesty-drape of leaves and grass.  

Naming the trails is surprisingly difficult, for what we end up calling them.

At the risk of self-conscious whimsy, there's The Road that goes all the way to the beaver pond, past Porcupine Falls and Long Meadow.

New Trail leads out the northern end of New Pasture past Hickory Corners to Blueberry Hill.

Loop Trail links New Trail to the Road. Thag creates fire! 

Gah. I feel as if I missed some important lesson about place names.

All those jokes about housing developments named for the thing it displaces (Osprey Reach, Dolphin Cove, yadda yadda). Ironic.

Anyway, a few days and a few yellow blazes later, we now we have Dead Possum Trail (named for the skeleton we found, natch) and what I first thought would be Trillium Trail.

Then we noticed this:

So, Broken Wagon Trail it is.

Okay, yes, it's not technically a wagon. Neither is it precisely broken. But Abandoned Hay Rake Trail doesn't have the same ring, does it? Plus Mr. Linton named it, and what he says, goes. Sometimes. This time. 

Back to the narrative.

​Late spring this year: even the old oaks seemed to be having a hard time waking up.