Very cold and still. Over by the springhouse, juncos are making their happy sounds. A mourning dove moans.
Dave Bonta
December 21, 2024
Bitter cold this solstice morning, with the half moon moving in and out of clouds—the trees with their shadows, and then just shadow.
December 20, 2024
Fine snow slowing to a stop by sunrise and resuming 45 minutes later. It’s quiet enough to hear what the creek is saying both before and after it travels under my yard.
December 19, 2024
Overcast, but with more brightness than gloom. On the forest floor, a barely-there lacework of snow. Somewhere in between, a goldfinch’s warble.
December 18, 2024
Sunrise past, thin clouds spread across the sky as if leaking from the flat-tire moon. The pileated woodpeckers are loud with what sounds like antagonism but could simply be joy.
December 17, 2024
A drumbeat of meltwater dripping onto the porch roof as the sky clears, just in time for the sun to top the ridge. My bootprints from last night’s walk have grown huge and dark.
December 16, 2024
Fog above the fresh snow—a paler shade of white. A gray squirrel thrusts her head into the ground and comes up with a white cap and a black walnut.
December 15, 2024
Gray and still, except for the creek’s trickle. A squirrel dangles from a low branch of the springhouse tulip tree, trying in vain to tear off a strip of bark.
December 14, 2024
Up with the sun, facing each other across 93 million miles of silence. It’s cold. I close my eyes for the brief afterimage: stark branches against a blood-red sky.
December 13, 2024
The wind has dropped, leaving a dusting of snow, and the sky is a patchwork of white and gray. A rifle booms from down-hollow. The creek gurgles on.
December 12, 2024
Bitter cold. A few small clouds turn brick-red. When the wind drops, there’s a staccato burst of pileated woodpecker alarm, answered only by a nuthatch.
December 11, 2024
A dark and rainy dawn. Will anything mark the hidden sunrise? Yes: three crows fly right over the house, yelling. The rain continues.
December 10, 2024
Damp and unseasonably warm. The sky brightens toward mid-morning, and the hillside’s coat of wet oak leaves begins to shine.
December 9, 2024
The snow on the road has turned to quaking puddles. The low rumble of a freight train is the only thing audible above the downpour.