RED MAPLE TREE FLOWER BUDS, TRUE HARBINGERS OF SPRING

RED MAPLE TREE BUDS...

...BEGINNING TO SWELL NOTICEABLY

Tuesday, 8:15 AM. 36 degrees F, wind NNW, light with slightly stronger occasional gusts.  The sky is hazy but clearing rapidly.  The humidity is 71% and the barometer is more or less steady, at 29.36".
   The melting continues, and as welcome as it is, it is also problematic.  The streams will soon begin to overflow their banks, and ice dams on roof edges and valleys will cause leaks and water damage inside buildings.  And to add insult to injury, the city tells us that the warm weather and melting actually drives the frost deeper into the ground, requiring us to keep our water running at least a pencil-diameter stream until further notice, to keep water lines and sewers from freezing.  As though to emphasize the point,  two more water line freeze-ups occurred in town yesterday.
   On the bright side, it is time to start watching the red maple buds swell. They won't bloom for perhaps another six weeks or more, but they are none-the-less true harbingers of spring, which I have watched wherever we have lived.  They are beginning to swell quite obviously now.
   We are on our way to Madison this morning for an Urban Forestry Council meeting at the state capitol.  Each spring we make the pilgrimage while the legislature is in session, so that I can meet with our state senator and representative to inform them of local issues in urban forestry.  This year we will thank them both (Senator Bob Jauch and Representative Janet Bewley) for their support of our recent, successful grant from the Forest Service to plant 142 or more street and park trees in the Chequamegon Bay communities.