Sunny and cold. The snow lingers like a guilty conscience. A squirrel climbs the dead elm, enters the old nest hole and sits peering out.
Year: 2015
Yesterday’s snow clings to the trees in tatters, long ribbons of it drooping from branches like torn sleeves before crumbling to dust.
Snowstorm. Two male cardinals meet on a white branch and stare at each other. A third red crest flashes in the woods: pileated woodpecker.
The shrunken mound of plowed snow in my yard glistens dully, streaked with dead grass. The whinnying call of a red-bellied woodpecker.
Cold and bright. A phoebe lands on a branch overhanging the road and flicks his tail. I wait for his eponymous call, but he merely chirps.
The northwest-facing hillside is finally more brown than white. In the yard, spear-tips of daffodils perforate a patch of rotting snow.
An inversion layer at sunrise. Above the roar of traffic from over the ridge, a bluebird’s warble. The clouds flare pink and slowly fade.
Cloudy; cold. Over the wind, the angry cries of crows. A hawk bursts from cover and takes off across the field with three crows in pursuit.
Rainy and cold. I am fascinated by the fog rising off the snow: how quickly it appears and disappears while barely seeming to move at all.
The rushing stream in one ear, a song sparrow in the other. Smoke from someone’s burn pile. High up, a V of migrant geese heading north.
A cloudless sky. Chipmunks and squirrels run back and forth across the melting snow. A gurgling chorus from all the springs and ditches.
Warm, with a clearing sky. The aging snowpack is a map of dark, branching lines: not varicose veins but the tunnels of meadow voles.
The slow melting continues. The sun is dim as a car’s headlight through the clouds. Scattered honks as a flock of Canada geese passes over.
Yesterday’s melting has turned old footprints from pits into little hills. New tracks are muddy brown, fading out by the middle of the yard.