Springing Alive

Spring may have happened in the calendar year a few weeks ago but today it really felt like spring! The weekend forecast was rainy/windy/overcast yet this morning (Sunday) we got up to bright sunshine and warm warm weather. Noah and I were already determined to take a walk today out at Squam Swamp/Farm - a property that NCF manages out on the east end of the island and the sunny warm weather made our trip all the much better!

Squam swamp is just lovely, low areas full of Nyssa sylvatica (Black gum) and uplands (for Nantucket) with lovely large and spreading beach trees. Dotted through out the walking trails maintained on this property are both ephemeral and permanent wetlands adding all sorts of visual, botanical and topographical variation, which on a mostly flat, forest-less island, is a necessity for the soul!






Check out the lovely large holly tree - these things are everywhere on the island! Green all winter long! We were of course hoping to see some spring ephemerals on our walk but we were too optimistic. Now is the time to mention though, that even though the walk was lovely, we had ulterior motives for heading out to Squam - ulterior movies in the form of tiny bleating baby sheep! Eeek - that's right, baby sheep. Anyone that knows me well knows how obsessed I am with sheep - the most adorable thing in the world. Now I'm lucky enough to work for an organization that actually owns a herd of sheep and breeds them. And, as everyone knows, spring is lambing season and man are our sheep lambing! 11 little lambs so far and 9 more ewes to give birth! I though I'd please all my readers with some pictures of lovely little baby lambs - the ones outside running around are a few days old but the ones in the sheds were only born last night. We even had a set of triplet lamps - that ewe is thinking she was insane!