After weeks of near-absence, crows call and quarrel in all directions. It must be the gut piles, venison viscera festering among the leaves.
November 2012
November 29, 2012
The sun rising through the trees off to the southeast seems so much less ambitious than last night’s moon. Goldfinches’ desultory chirps.
November 28, 2012
Cold and windy, but the scattered cumulous clouds barely move. Up on the ridge, the plaintive call of a turkey separated from her flock.
November 27, 2012
A voice woke me from a dream this morning, telling me there was snow on the ground—and there is! A Carolina wren trills from a snowy branch.
November 26, 2012
A nuthatch scolds something at the woods’ edge. A few distant gunshots. You’d never know the hollow is full of hunters sitting in trees.
November 25, 2012
The ethereal notes of cedar waxwings on the wind. In the now-leafless lilac, I spot a black walnut wedged into a cluster of small branches.
November 24, 2012
Snowflakes swirl past the porch; the trees twist and sway. High, thin notes of a white-throated sparrow. A raven croaks twice.
November 23, 2012
Mid-morning. The sun slowly fades behind thickening clouds. Chickadees and titmice flit among the dried goldenrod heads, arguing loudly.
November 22, 2012
A deer under the lilac glows strangely in the sunlight refracted from my bedroom window. The waxy myrtle leaves crackle between her teeth.
November 21, 2012
Melting hoarfrost drips like rain. I watch one glistening drop change from red to yellow to violet as the sun inches into the deep blue sky.
November 20, 2012
The lace-work of leafless treetops against the clouds. No wonder the dead cherry with its cluster of six limb-stumps reminds me of despair.
November 19, 2012
Gray sky. A gray squirrel emerges from the tiny attic opening in the springhouse roof and falls head-first into the cattails.
November 18, 2012
A heavy frost whitens tree branches fifteen feet off the ground. It’s so quiet, I can hear people talking a quarter mile away.
November 17, 2012
Cold and clear. The hissing of a nearby air compressor blots out all birdsong. It sounds like nothing so much as really loud silence.