February is supposed to be the grand finale of winter here, the month of blinding whiteouts, plowed snow piled high, bitter cold, and gray days followed by days so bright that they make your head hurt. Well, not quite this year. We’ll blame it on Climate Change until a better reason comes along. Nonetheless, February did have a few good winter moments, including two plow-worthy snowstorms that we explored with camera in hand.
During and after the snowstorms, some of our miserly old apple trees held tightly onto their fruit, providing red memories of Fall, albeit withered memories.
A sunny February day after a gray snowy one is one of the great pleasures of a rural life. We had several of those. On one such days, snow hid imperfections, ice glistened in branches, and an orange-burnished sunset tucked the day in as if it were a precious child.
Speaking of the white stuff, February’s full moon was called the Snow Full Moon by Native Americans. This year, it rose dramatically into a densely clouded sky and looked very “February.”
Although we had little snow, we had plenty of fierce rain and high winds, a combination that downed trees, disrupted electrical power, and devastated dirt driveways.
However, those windy days created a traveling color show along the coast, where fishing flotsam came bobbing in for a brief rest.
Some fishing vessels remain working in February here, fishing for scallops and urchins, mostly. But, a good number of vessels are put “on the hard” and go to bed with nightcaps on.
In the wildlife category, the mild month made survival easier for our resident rafts of Wild Turkey and herds of White-Tailed Deer in thick winter coats that gather falling snow. However, that survival always is subject to some culling by our Eastern Coyotes, sometimes called Coywolves. Note the fresh deer leg bone in the mouth of one of our residents, below. (Eastern Coyotes, are the result of a significant coyote migration last century; they’re larger than their Western cousins because they picked up a significant percentage of wolf in their DNA along the way.)
Coyotes can’t reach our annual convention of about 400 Common Eiders in Blue Hill Bay. They come into the fast waters of Blue Hill Falls with the rising tide and dive for mollusks and crustaceans.
Finally, February is about love. Valentine’s Day is a great excuse to brighten the winter of a loved one. This year’s flowers from Fairwinds Florist in Blue Hill did the job nicely for one beloved person:
(All images above were taken in Down East Maine during February 2020.)