It's hard to imagine that in 3 months the world will be so different

In 3 months there will be growing plants, growing edible plants in this front slope garden. It'll probably be Kale and Radishes, but still. With the greater than dog depth snow (dog for scale) it's good to remind ourselves of that from time to time given the seemingly interminable winter.

Down this way over to the left we're excited to see if the thornless raspberries that we planted after the seedling swap last May survived and will give us fruit this year. We certainly hope so obviously, but we didn't site them ideally now that we know more about them. That happens though. It's hard to tell from this photo, but we're also going to have to do a lot of brush clearing, and widowmaker removal from the woods line. Due to the high winds and heavy snow of this winter a lot of large branches broke, or half broke off. Many of them are snagged in the trees and very dangerous. I need to either find or make a long pole hook to drag the widowmakers down under my control instead of risking them falling by surprise. I think it would be fun to do a bonfire or something after a brush clearing party.

I had intended to get out and snow shoe more this winter, but I haven't been home before dark very often. It looks like such perfect snow and woods for snow shoeing around in. Obviously it's very deep, but right now it's not all turned into ice and chunky mess yet due to the deep freeze colds we've been living in lately. As a person that is very much a warm weather person, I never thought I'd be happy for the benefits of below zero temperatures. Due to those near or below zero temperatures for weeks on end, the fact that I haven't had (or more to the point made) the time to remove snow from the roofs of the hutches and coop hasn't been a major problem. This Saturday I have time set aside to knock the snow on top of them down so we don't end up with leaks or collapses in the case of the chicken coop. That said, it's starting to be light earlier and earlier now, so if I just woke up 15 minutes earlier I'd have useful time outside to use. Right now with the Critter I'm unlikely to be willing to wake up a minute earlier than I have to since I'm not getting enough right now, but it is something I could do. So, here's the bright morning reminding me, time to be ready for planting sooner than one might imagine.