March 23, 2026

Pulling scion orders: “Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”  March 23, 2026

It continued to snow all day today. Not enough to add much accumulation, but more than enough to keep us indoors. It was the perfect day to assemble the last of the scionwood orders. Sorry, it’s now too late. You can still come to MOFGA on Sunday the 29th for the annual Scion Exchange. There will be piles of free scionwood there as well as rootstock, grafting demonstrations, workshops and  a lot more. It’s also not too late to cut your own scionwood in many locations. The scions are still dormant here in central Maine and will be for at least another two weeks.

We had three new visitors to the bird feeder today, all three undoubtedly fugitives from the storm. We can imagine they saw an opening in the woods and the locals crowded around the feeder and said to each other, “Dudes, let’s shelter here.” The newbies were the brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater), goldfinch (Spinus tristis) and song sparrow (Melospiza melodia). By the end of the day when the snow had subsided, they had moved on.