Dense fog and silence—the instant wilderness found inside a cloud. A leaf falls 100 feet away and I hear the soft rustle when it lands.
November 2011
11/15/2011
Muddy footprints cross the porch and stop in front of my chair. Their probable owner crouches nearby in the rain like an evicted squatter.
11/14/2011
Warm and wet—almost a March day, were it not for that rustle the rain makes on leaves, still crisp and curled in the first blush of death.
11/13/2011
Mid-morning, and my feet are propped on the rail as usual. A female downy woodpecker lands on my right boot and taps at the worn-down sole.
11/12/2011
A grown fawn nuzzles her mother’s flank as if to nurse. The mother whirls around, head lowered, threatening with invisible antlers.
11/11/2011
Cold and gray—November weather at last. Oak leaves twirl and somersault past the porch, accompanied by a few motes of snow.
11/10/2011
A crow flies off cawing and returns silently to the same tree. In the garden, comfrey leaves have begun turning face-down into the earth.
11/9/2011
Another cloudless morning. Sunlight glints on abandoned spider and caterpillar silk in every tree and between them—a threadbare garment.
11/8/2011
At 5:15, I’m startled by the dark sky, the closeness of the stars. At daybreak, seven deer stand within a stone’s throw of the porch.
11/7/2011
Late morning, I take a break from crisis management to watch a hungry groundhog, his pelt shining brown and orange and silver in the sun.
11/6/2011
A Carolina wren breaks the silence, bobbing up and down on the peak of the springhouse roof: one side frosty, the other steaming in the sun.
11/5/2011
A hard frost softens the edges of leaves and blades of grass. The witch hazel blossoms beside the house have curled into woolly fists.
11/4/2011
While oak leaves spiral into the yard, six vultures tilt and pivot high above, searching for an updraft, then turn and drift on south.
11/3/2011
Last week’s snow has shrunk to a scattering of patches the size of dinner plates. Crows yell back and forth above the din from the highway.