by Curt Kovener 
In what seems to be an annual home disruption for renovation at the wilderness retreat, the work is nearly complete. Shortly after Christmas the utility room was dismantled, exposed pipes secured and hidden behind walls, electric outlets & switches updated and new walls and flooring installed.
What prompted this was a sale last November which found new high efficiency washer & dryer delivered to the remote location. Not wanting to put a new washer & dryer in an old room, the renovation began.
And I took my usual slow, plodding pace when it came to the demolition and renovation.
The room is small, 5’x 8’ with a door leading to the back deck. I found that working in a small room is more time consuming because nearly everything has to be cut to fit. Even the new laminate flooring required cuts on every run.
But Sunday the room renovation was nearly complete except for some touch-up painting to hide the nail holes in the trim.
So despite the cooler than usual temperatures, Charley & I went on a walk. The greening of the hills & hollows of the woods lags about a week to 10 days behind here in the flatlands. The lone bright spots are the daffodils that were planted several years ago. They pushed up through and were bowed over by several layers of brown fallen leaves and I gave Mother Nature a hand by gently removing the restriction to allow the sun to bring on some yellow blooms.
A few trees are beginning to show some bud swell but from the series of sneezing I occasionally do in the woods, some trees are already blooming.
From our walk about, it is evident that there will be ample firewood to cut from the trees blown down. There always is, it seems.
While I have yet to spot one I see plenty of evidence of wild turkeys. Earlier in the winter a turkey walked across the front porch leaving his telltale tracks in the snow telling me we had a wilderness resident come calling.
With the warming sun, the top surface of the lake shows bluegill and bass warming themselves and looking for food. I tossed out some floating fish food and they ate but without much enthusiasm. I suspect that while they are hungry, they are still pretty chilled from living under the snow and ice all winter.
A couple of surprise visitors to the wilderness lake this weekend was a pair of wood ducks. The brightly colored male with the deep red ring around his eyes was a nice contrast to the still dull brown hillside.
