In the Sunday morning silence, I can hear the wind reshuffling fallen leaves half-way up the ridge and the long sighs of the pines.
November 2015
11/14/2015
Between bitter gusts of wind, I hear the calls of juncos and nuthatches, chickadees and titmice, a song sparrow singing in the ditch.
11/13/2015
After a night of high winds, the lilac is more threadbare than ever, and in the crowns of the oaks, only the odd clot of a drey remains.
11/12/2015
More rain. From the treetops, the thin whistles of cedar waxwings. A squirrel digs up a walnut in the yard and buries it a foot away.
11/11/2015
A squirrel enters the cavity in the dead elm and rests its chin on the lip of the hole, watching silently as juncos swirl through the yard.
11/10/2015
A stag prances through the gray goldenrod and into the dim, dripping woods with his six bright spears held high—a parade of one.
11/9/2015
Melted frost shining like dew on the lilac. A deer trots down the road and into the yard to graze, raising her head to keep an eye on me.
11/8/2015
Cold and clear. The mostly bare branches shine silver in the sun. A junco flies twittering through the porch.
11/7/2015
Overcast. Two ravens glide along the ridge, circle back and land in the treetops. A hunter in gray forest camouflage emerges from the woods.
11/6/2015
Next to the mostly brown woods, the great yellow blob of the lilac seems almost scandalous. It trembles as small birds pass through it.
11/5/2015
Warm morning after a cold night, and the oaks are shedding leaves: a dry sound as they hit lower branches, like the ticking of many clocks.
11/4/2015
Leaves still cling to the tall locusts—threadbare coats of gold beneath the fourth-quarter moon, pale as a discarded toenail clipping.
11/3/2015
The sun blazes through the orange crown of an oak. High up in the cloudless sky, a sleek F-16 trailed by its slow, over-sized roar.
11/2/2015
A light smear of sun in the Monday gray. Birds stir in the tall cedar beside the house: the chip chip of a junco; a tree sparrow’s tseet.