Wet snow clings to every branch and twig, making the forest look almost as inviting as it does in early May when the leaves are half open.
Year: 2017
Thick fog, and the road gray with sleet that fell in the night. Three red-bellied woodpeckers are whinnying back and forth in the treetops.
I take off my hat to sunbathe as icicles drop, turning the roof toothless. The brass section tunes up: jay, cardinal, song sparrow.
Weak sun threading through the trees. The glint of microscopic flakes makes the air seem metallic. A white-throated sparrow’s wavering song.
Bitter cold with a wind. I sit with feet propped up as usual while snowflakes needle my cheek and pile up behind the ridges in my jeans.
Silence has descended along with the snow—6 inches so far—save for the rumble of snowplows. A squirrel walks on the dry underside of a limb.
The drone of a single-prop plane, hidden like the horizon by trees. A mourning dove calls. The sun slowly submerges in a mud bath of clouds.
Bitter wind. A small privet bush bends under the weight of six juncos, then two titmice, then three waxwings, each feasting on its berries.
Four inches of wet snow clinging to every branch is almost all shaken down in one great blast of wind. The cardinal never stops singing.
Bright and windy. Leaves skitter like crabs across the forest floor. I track an unseen hawk’s passage by the squirrel alarms it sets off.
Filmy-winged gnats are blown past the porch, pale as snowflakes in the strong sun. Overhead, the fierce cries of ravens playing in the wind.
A flock of Canada geese somewhere in the clouds like a ghost army led by rusty bugles. A speeding white car emerges from the fog.
Chickadees peck at the rapidly disappearing snow on the north side of the springhouse roof. As the ground turns brown, the sky turns white.
A downy woodpecker in the spicebush hangs from a silk moth cocoon, trying to reach the pupa, but the soft stuff defeats her hammer and nail.