We had real spring weather this week –I think the high temperature was 55 degrees. All the snow is melting, and the rivers and streams are full. Lake Pepin is still frozen, but there are big open areas and wide cracks in the ice. Both eagle nests along the Buffalo River are occupied, and we saw some Sandhill Cranes walking along a patch of open water near the Chippewa River.
These days we have two woodchucks sitting on the rocks behind the house. They look much slimmer than they did last fall. I didn’t get a good photo of the two of them together, but here’s one of them sunning on a rock.

The first butterflies were out – Milbert’s Tortoiseshells. And there were some small moths too – I think they were “The Infant”, Archiearis infans. There were lots of both, fluttering in the prairies and resting in muddy places and on rocks in the sun.

Milbert’s Tortoiseshell – the first butterfly.

It was nice walking weather, even though the ground was still pretty mushy in places. The surface had thawed, but in some places the ground underneath was still frozen which made the surface very slippery. Some of the fields and the north and east facing slopes still had snow, but they were starting to lose it by the time we left. It’s odd to be walking through a field of snow when it’s sunny and 55 degrees.

The intermittent streams were all running again, even louder than before. The temperature at night was about 15 degrees, so in the mornings, everything was quiet – the creek was low, and the streams were only a trickle. During the day the temperature rose very quickly, and everything started to melt. By afternoon the streams and the creek were all rushing, and the flood would continue until late at night. I opened the window at midnight one night, and I could still hear the stream rushing past.

The creek and the Frog Pond were both as high as we’ve ever seen them. The water in the frog pond got up to just below the spillway – and it was still going up when we left. The creek was very deep and fast, and full of sediment. One morning, when things were still quiet, we raked away some of the sticks left over from the beaver dam, and scraped away a little of the silt on the bottom. We were hoping the rushing water in the afternoon would clean out the channel a bit, and get down to the rocks at the bottom. It worked but there’s still some sediment left. This might be an easy way to clean out the stream for the trout. The water from our streams isn’t adding any sediment to the creek – I guess streams running through prairies are pretty clean.

The flooded Frog Pond

And the creek – over half way up the culvert

I went out to try calling owls one evening, but there was so much going on that I didn’t even turn on the tape recorder. The woodcocks were “peenting” and twittering – one flew right over me with one loud “peent!” There were coyotes howling, the stream was rushing, and several raccoons were eating the fallen birdseed under the deck. I shone the flashlight down on one, and it wasn’t bothered at all. It just stared up at me with the light full on its face and then went back to eating.

Mike was working on and thinking about podcasting, and he recorded his first ever podcast on Monday morning. It really had him thinking about recording sounds – he’s determined to record some of the farm sounds that we enjoy. This week there was lots of rushing and babbling water, spring bird sounds, and coyote howls.