Rain-slick trees green with lichen dance in a puddle’s punctuated sky.
November 2022
Tuesday November 29, 2022
Heavily overcast at sunrise; only the ground glows a faint pink, thick with rain-slick leaves. A screech owl trills.
Monday November 28, 2022
Mostly overcast and quiet, apart from the wind. A squirrel with an acorn in her mouth pauses for a split second at the end of a branch, then leaps.
Sunday November 27, 2022
Overcast; the smell of rain. Cattail leaves rattle faintly. A few tiny patches of snow linger in the tall grass.
Saturday November 26, 2022
A close shot echoes off the ridge—it’s the opening day of regular firearms deer season. The sun moves slowly through the trees, dimming, blazing.
Friday November 25, 2022
Warm rain. The snow has shrunk to a few scrofulous patches in the woods. Half an hour before sunrise, a bluebird is singing.
Thursday November 24, 2022
The sun finally clears the ridgetop at 8:00. A crow at the compost has an exchange with a raven high overhead: caw caw caw ARK ARK ARK etc.
Wednesday November 23, 2022
I look up from my phone: another perfect day. Tree shadows on the snow stretch from the woods’ edge to the porch. Doves flutter up on sonorous wings.
Tuesday November 22, 2022
One last meteor leaves a faint streak in the dawn sky. That dark disc rising through the trees has a shining husk—the old moon.
Monday November 21, 2022
Clear, cold (13F/-10C) and very quiet. Foraging deer have scraped a bare patch in the snow. A sliver of moon slips through the treetops.
Sunday November 20, 2022
As cold as yesterday but with orange-bellied clouds and a wind. A tulip tree seed helicopters into the yard and rises up over the house.
Saturday November 19, 2022
The wind dropped in the night—and so did the mercury. It’s quiet. A squirrel chisels open a walnut. The cold creeps in through layers of clothing.
Friday November 18, 2022
January weather, blustery and cold—and just as in January, two gray squirrels play amorous hide-and-seek on the trunk of the big tulip poplar.
Thursday November 17, 2022
-3C/27F with a wind. A hunter’s pickup rumbles past. A flock of small birds flies in a tight, silent cluster over the treetops.