Bright sun belies the bitter wind. A tiny but perfect snowflake lands on the back of my hand, that watchword for familiarity gloved in the skin of a cow.
February 2025
February 13, 2025
Rain falling on snow: a soft sound that slowly grows harder, like a fantasy evolving into a belief. The dark tree limbs still look dapper in their new white sleeves.
February 12, 2025
The slow fall of small snowflakes never quite stops. A squirrel with a half a tail bounds past, carrying his freshy disinterred breakfast: a black lump of frozen walnut.
February 11, 2025
Heavily overcast at sunrise. A meadow vole is busy with home improvement, popping out of the ground every minute or two to gather stiltgrass.
February 10, 2025
A dark sky at dawn with one bright gash. As it eases shut, an icy breeze springs up. The stream gurgles softly in its sleep.
February 9, 2025
Two fresh inches of mostly sleet, with its bleak magic of turning from sand to concrete. A titmouse by the springhouse sings his most mechanical song. A distant crow.
February 8, 2025
Heavily overcast. A vole briefly surfaces in the yard, all dark fur and blur. A screech owl trills on the ridgetop where the sun should be.
February 7, 2025
Pink lingers in the sky for half an hour past sunrise. Great gusts of wind roar through the forest and my eyes track the motion, automatically searching for the beast I know isn’t there.
February 6, 2025
The ground is white with sleet and graupel, and there’s a shimmer of rain from a sky like gray wool. A pileated woodpecker bursts out of the woods, cackling maniacally.
February 5, 2025
Cold and overcast, but with a broad palette of grays. Two geese go over, one silent, the other bugling non-stop. I resist the urge to check the news.
February 4, 2025
A gray sunrise, signalled only by the yelling of crows. After yesterday’s warmth, the ground is more brown than white. The wind picks up, clattering through the treetops.
February 3, 2025
A fresh half-inch of snow, and the ground’s as white as the sky again. From over the ridge, the roar of a Monday morning. A blue jay jeers.
February 2, 2025
Cold and very quiet, with a blue sky slowly fading to white. A vulture drifts past the sun without flapping a wing.
February 1, 2025
Temperature falling as the sun rises. The sound of wind from far off. A small scarlet oak that kept some of its leaves shivers a little.