spring is springing in western massachusetts so it was time to scope out the community garden plots to figure out which one we are going to request as our very own at this weekend’s open sign-ups:

it is a big decision, because once you have a plot, you can keep it forever (unless you don’t take care of it). so we went to a garden committee meeting and found out which plots are free and then took a walk around:

which to choose? M10? O11? perhaps the one with the brussel sprouts?

we’ll have to get to the sign-up early. tom started his seeds almost two weeks ago and there are quite a few…we are going to need somewhere to plant them.

up here spring also means that the bears wake up. we had heard that there were bears in our area and that it is a good idea to only have bird feeders in the yard during winter. the general rule is to take them inside by the end of march, so it made sense that last weekend should be our last bird buffet of the season and we planned to take them down on sunday. a good plan, no?

sunday morning we woke up to find this:

the bear tore the tops off of most of the feeders. but this one proved a bit more tricky, i guess:

lesson learned: when you start your seeds, you take down the birdfeeders.

[…] here it is in all its glory: (we have the left most half of the dirt rectangle containing the brussel sprouts.) […]

[…] the visual evidence of bear activity during the last snow, combined with the advice of locals, served to convince us that we should not compost food scraps in our backyard. we don’t need to invite the bears in. […]