Spring Has Sprung

Website Editor • April 11, 2022

Well, it started to spring and then it flopped. But now it seems to be back. It means I can turn the water on in my office at the MMA behind the Mitchell House and that the water going on for the Aquarium is soon to come – that site is a little later because of that COLD north wind that comes over the harbor and hits those exposed pipes. It means we will soon have all of our yearly life safety inspections of our properties, the landscaper will rake us out, and the dryer vents in our dorms and other living spaces are getting cleaned (as I type this!). Funny how these things – non-nature – mark spring at least for me at the MMA.



But then, the natural world is also awakening more. As you can see from this image, I found a nest. I think it’s an older nest I had not noticed here on Vestal but I think it may be getting ready for some re-use. I know I have a robin’s nest at home that was reused by likely the same robin that built it. It seems slightly attended to with more recent grass. And the neighborhood red-tails that started to fluff their nest in January – they can do this late winter but January was early! – are back in full fluff mode and screaming overhead. A nice harbinger of spring indeed!


JNLF

Recent Posts

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger May 5, 2025
I have posted this during Women’s History Month before but because it is March and Women’s History Month, I think it’s worth repeating. It’s clever and helps to tell an important story in women’s history while giving it a bit of a 21 st century twist. It comes via the National Women’s History Project .  JNLF
May 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger April 28, 2025
Lynn, Ap. 25 1869  My dear President, I am not sure I told you how long I must be away from the College. If I took only the Sunday’s rest, it would be possible for me to reach the Obs. By Tuesday, but I feel the need of more than one day of quiet, before I enter upon the new and incomprehensible life before me . . . William Mitchell died on April 19, 1869 and for the first time, Maria Mitchell was alone. Save for her trip to the southern United States and Europe in 1857 and 1858, her father was always by her side. She did not know much of a day in her life without him nearby and she knows that. It was difficult for her – and her siblings worried about her and this new world she was now in. She had been – expect for that trip – the caregiver for both of her parents. Her mother, Lydia Coleman Mitchell, died in 1861 on Nantucket and Maria had cared for her as well. She was the child who became the caregiver of the family – both in her youth as her siblings sought her out for care, humor, love, and adventures while their mother was busy with younger children and household duties – and then her parents as the only child who did not marry and remained by their sides. JNLF
Show More