In the half dark, the roar of Monday morning traffic from over the ridge. The last stars fade. A cardinal pipes up.
Plummer’s Hollow
March 9, 2025
Clear and still, despite the madness of clocks losing an hour. Woodpecker drums. A squirrel rummaging through last year’s leaves.
March 8, 2025
Half an inch of wet snow has turned things white again, if not for long: the wind blows clumps of snow from the trees. The sun comes up.
March 7, 2025
Windy, cold and clear at dawn. A song sparrow pipes up from the depths of the lilac. The ridge turns red.
March 6, 2025
When the wind dies, I can hear the roaring of the creek. I sit in the dark, composing a limerick in my head.
March 5, 2025
Rain. The stone-wall chipmunk races across the yard and disappears into the woods. The rattle of my metal roofs drowns out everything but a train horn.
March 4, 2025
A gray-wool sky, periodically crossed by Vs of geese. The snowpack has shrunk to an archipelago of white ice. A neighbor’s chicken is crowing over her latest creation.
March 3, 2025
A red dawn. The talking drums of pileated woodpeckers: one bass, one snare. A white-throated sparrow falters half-way through his song.
March 2, 2025
Bitter cold and overcast. After a bit of belly-grooming, the stone-wall chipmunk races across the yard to forage under the lilac, only to be chased off by another chipmunk. She returns to her spot atop the wall and sits motionless, staring off into space.
March 1, 2025
Sun and clouds and a turkey vulture rocking in the wind. Then the blue fissures close, and it’s another gray day.
February 28, 2025
A fresh dusting of snow: winter’s not done with us yet. But the chipmunk who lives in the stone wall next to the porch is up, poking around under the lilac, racing across the yard.
February 27, 2025
Hard rain at daybreak easing off into fog. The ground under the trees is still more white than brown. The voices in the creek have increased from a symposium to a convention.
February 26, 2025
A sky of pastel colors occasionally graced by a bleary sun. Strings of non-migrant, local Canada geese fly low over the trees, restless, their cries still full of elsewhere.
February 25, 2025
Heavily overcast with a steady drip of snowmelt. From one valley, the sound of trains; from the other, a killdeer. A snow goblin left by the plow topples over into the road.