Almost breakup season

The ditch steamers came by yesterday, unfreezing the ditches where culverts went under the road and such. It rained. Now there's a rivulet the thickness of my wrist flowing down through the pond area over the ice; it leaps onto the grass across the path and then dives under the snow again and is busily filling up the back dip behind the gate. The dogs spent the night indoors because ugh.

The winter pig field, on a south slope, has thawed. It's become a transmitting slope for the wood field, which is flat and just uphill and thus is still melting and sending its flow down through the pigpen to join the pond. So far the pigpen isn't deep mud; I need to open up the fence to the wood field so they can go lighter on it. also I will toss down my cardboard to stabilize the soil a bit and get mechanically broken down by their feet so it composts quickly.

I can see soil on the steepest of my southern slopes around the haskaps.

A vast host of swans has flown overhead, stopping to rest on the fields one town over and then on the open corner of the lake where it outflows into the river.

The road bans are on.

Spring is nigh.