Just one degree above freezing, but most of last night’s wet snow has fallen from the trees, rococo filigree replaced by stark modernism.
February 2013
February 13, 2013
One squirrel leads another through the woods, pausing repeatedly to let it catch up. Only when a third joins in does it turn into a chase.
February 12, 2013
This isn’t silence but a steady roar, ridgetop wind drowning out everything except for the wren, who translates that agitation into his own.
February 11, 2013
A cloud has settled in and delegated to the trees its responsibility to rain. Some restless animal gnaws on a beam under the house.
February 10, 2013
The sun shines through thin clouds; tree shadows on the snow are light gray rather than blue. A red-bellied woodpecker trills over and over.
February 9, 2013
Wind and a little new snow have softened the landscape’s hardest edges. The birches squeak like beginning fiddlers trying to get in tune.
February 7, 2013
Chickadees scold something hidden in the treetops. I can’t stop looking at a dried bromegrass leaf—its ornate curlicues against the snow.
February 6, 2013
Snowflakes swirl clockwise around the yard. A red-tailed hawk flies over, flapping hard, pale feathers almost invisible in the falling snow.
February 5, 2013
With less water, the stream is louder than it was yesterday. Three-inch cataracts splash into teacup-sized plunge pools.
February 4, 2013
The sun rises above a mass of cloud looming like the lost, real mountain for which this is a foothill. A wren pops out from under the porch.
February 3, 2013
A squirrel leaps through the snow-laden lilac up by the other house, chasing the juncos. Their high, tinny alarm-calls sound like laughter.
February 2, 2013
Cold and bleak. The clouds part above the ridge: a circle of blue bisected by a wide, shining contrail, the jet roaring just out of sight.
February 1, 2013
A squirrel walks slowly through the woods, searching its memory, then stops, digs through the fresh snow and comes up with a nut.