A Winter on Goose Cove Part 2: January – June
As I mentioned in part 1 of this 2-part post, we spent one of our first slomad (nomads traveling slowly) winters on Cape Ann (Massachusetts) on a cove in Annisquam, with our own dock, beautiful scenery, and lots of birds and other wildlife. That post ended with our first snowstorm of the season, which arrived in early December.
The new year started with a bang (literally!) when we got hit by a powerful blizzard with hurricane-force winds, thundersnow, and a storm surge that flooded even parts of Boston’s financial district.
We were lucky and didn’t have any flood damage, but we did have plenty of snow to deal with.
It ended up being a pretty rough winter, so very cold, and with several huge storms coming through one after another. The cove was frozen solid.
On windy days, the powdery snow lying on top of the ice would swirl around and glitter in the sunshine. Beautiful to watch from inside, but painful to be out in. I think that winter was the first time I heard the term “polar vortex”.
We felt so bad for the poor birds and kept filling up the bird feeder. And were rewarded with lots of adorable visitors right outside the kitchen window.
That winter was when I really got into birds and started learning more about them, how to identify their calls, telling the difference between males and females, etc. It was really fun and not something I had expected when we moved in.
Wild turkeys were also frequent visitors, sometimes in a large flock, sometimes just a few.
I actually didn’t know that they fly, and spend their nights up in the trees.
On frigid and windy days we would sometimes find a bunch of them huddled up under the cantilever against the side of the house that got a little bit of bleak sun through the trees for a few hours in the afternoon. I have to confess I’m a little bit scared of them… they’re large and not easily intimidated; we once saw a male sitting in the middle of the road, fanning out his tail and staring down an approaching trash truck. 😬
One day I happened to glance out the window as I walked by the front door and saw these two ⬆ checking out their reflections in my car. I thought that was kind of funny and got my camera, but after a while they got quite agitated, it seemed like they thought their reflections were intruders, and I was a bit worried that they would start attacking the car, so I opened the door and clapped my hands loudly. They turned and started staring at me instead, and the male fanned out his tail, so I went back inside and closed the door, 😂😂😂 and after a while, they wandered off.
Eventually, the weather got warmer, the ice started breaking up, and magical foggy mornings and spring rains arrived.
April turned out to be one of the coldest on record, and a rainstorm that caused flash flooding at several subway stations in NYC moved up our way too, with heavy rain and storm winds. Several houses across the cove from us were clearly flooded, but we were lucky, and only the dock was under water for a while.
When May finally arrived, it was one of the warmest on record (never a dull moment in New England if you like weather) and nature sprang to life.
It felt so good to be able to have morning coffee in the sun and watch the sunsets from the dock again.
Wading (and other) birds started appearing in the cove.
And the nest that the Downy Woodpecker had created outside the sunroom in the fall got a new tenant. 🙂
In mid-June, our lease ended, and I was off to Portugal on my next slomad adventure. 😃
Come along to Portugal!
PS. If you love an image in this post that you don’t see in my store, and would like it as a print, just get in touch and let me know which image it is, and the size you would like. I’m always happy to make a custom print when possible.