Cold, thinly overcast, and very quiet. The spot where the sun must be glows like a yellow door among the ridgetop trees.
February 18, 2025
Deep cold at dawn. Icicles hanging from the eaves bend this way and that. The trees creak and groan. The chip, chip of a cardinal waking up.
February 17, 2025
The winds that buffeted the house all night have mostly retreated to the ridgetop—a distant roar. A few, yellow-bellied clouds add their scattered flakes to the windblown snow drifting atop the ice. I hear my mother on her back porch yelling at the squirrels.
February 16, 2025
Daybreak finds each twig and weed encased in a quarter inch of ice. Every five minutes, another crack or crash from up on the ridge. The fog thickens.
February 15, 2025
A faint shimmer of precipitation from a leaden sky. The vole in the yard is gathering more bedding. A white-throated sparrow sings once and falls silent.
February 14, 2025
Bright sun belies the bitter wind. A tiny but perfect snowflake lands on the back of my hand, that watchword for familiarity gloved in the skin of a cow.
February 13, 2025
Rain falling on snow: a soft sound that slowly grows harder, like a fantasy evolving into a belief. The dark tree limbs still look dapper in their new white sleeves.
February 12, 2025
The slow fall of small snowflakes never quite stops. A squirrel with a half a tail bounds past, carrying his freshy disinterred breakfast: a black lump of frozen walnut.
February 11, 2025
Heavily overcast at sunrise. A meadow vole is busy with home improvement, popping out of the ground every minute or two to gather stiltgrass.
February 10, 2025
A dark sky at dawn with one bright gash. As it eases shut, an icy breeze springs up. The stream gurgles softly in its sleep.
February 9, 2025
Two fresh inches of mostly sleet, with its bleak magic of turning from sand to concrete. A titmouse by the springhouse sings his most mechanical song. A distant crow.
February 8, 2025
Heavily overcast. A vole briefly surfaces in the yard, all dark fur and blur. A screech owl trills on the ridgetop where the sun should be.
February 7, 2025
Pink lingers in the sky for half an hour past sunrise. Great gusts of wind roar through the forest and my eyes track the motion, automatically searching for the beast I know isn’t there.
February 6, 2025
The ground is white with sleet and graupel, and there’s a shimmer of rain from a sky like gray wool. A pileated woodpecker bursts out of the woods, cackling maniacally.