There’s an old proverb that says, “no matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.”  This weekend sure felt like it had finally arrived.

“I can smell it”

We took a short drive through Cavendish, enjoying the sun and fresh air, and spotted this guy on the edge of the ice at Wheatley River.

We actually saw three of these bald eagles on our drive today but this was the only one we managed to photograph.

With spring only a couple of weeks away, our thoughts have been turning to the gardens and our seed starting schedule.

Depending on who you talk to, our last spring frost is typically expected sometime in the last week of may or first part of June. So with about twelve weeks before the last frost of the year, we need to start some of our seeds in anticipation of planting out when the soil is workable

First up are our leeks and onions.  We’ll start the seeds this week, giving us about eight to ten weeks head start before planting them into the gardens.  Onions and leeks are fairly cold-tolerant, so we will transplant them two to three weeks before the last spring frost date – sometime in early May.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll also be starting our broccoli, cauliflower, pepper and tomato seeds.

We experienced a steep learning curve last year when planning and planting our gardens.  Thankfully we’ve had far more successes than failures, but with everything in life, if we can learn from our mistakes, we won’t be subjected to repeat them again.  Careful records of our seeding and transplanting dates last year has taken out some of the guesswork, and we can tweak our schedule to improve our success this year.

I think spring really is my favorite time of year.  To me, it feels like the new year actually starts now – when the snow is melting, the soil warms and the trees and plants are waking up from the winter.

I know, I know – we’re not out of winter’s grip yet, but I keep reminding myself that there’s more winter behind us than ahead.