If you have some time on your hands this weekend here are a few ideas to keep you busy!
1) Prune your fruit trees (apple, pear, peach and plum) and blueberry bushes. Here are a few tip sheets we share with our apple tree pruning workshop participants:
2) Clean out your birdhouses so they are ready for this year’s residents. And if you don't have any birdhouses, make a few. They are a great project to do with children (you can even throw in a little math and science)! Bluebird house designs work great for chickadees, tree swallows, titmice, even house wrens. Here’s a design from the North American Bluebird Society.
3) Walk your property lines and keep up any postings or markings that you maintain. Here’s a useful information sheet from the Maine Forest Service.
4) Enjoy a morning walk. As the weather warms and more migratory birds return, the birdsong of Spring returns to Maine! How many can you identify? New to birding? Here are some spring birding tips from our partner, Cornell Lab.
5) Hold off on raking leaves in your yard and yard edges. Many beneficial native insects are using that leaf cover to overwinter still. Take that walk instead . . .