The sound of chainsaws from over the ridge. A chipmunk races up the big tulip poplar and returns to earth along the first, hung-down limb.
Plummer’s Hollow
Raindrops grow farther and farther apart until there are none. Three squirrels screech in counterpoint, a preaching choir of fear.
Cold and quiet but for the stream’s gurgle. Bare limbs are pale in the half-strength sun, as if they’d all been barked clean by a porcupine.
Bright sun, heavy frost. Down in the hollow, a screech owl calls as persistently as if it were midnight. I take deep breaths of the icy air.
Among the leaves scudding past the porch, a stray snowflake. A blue seam opens in the clouds to the west where a raven is calling.
Cloudy and cold. The quiet tapping of a downy woodpecker. A deer hunter appears, his bloody quarry sliding behind him on the fallen leaves.
Yesterday’s snow lingers in the shadows and drips and slides from the leaves, filling the treetops with rustling. Vultures spiral overhead.
Mid-morning and the yard is seething with birds—chickadees, sparrows, juncos, nuthatches, titmice—foraging and singing despite the sleet.
Rainy and warm. A paper wasp walks unsteadily back and forth on the bottom railing. Squirrels keep scolding some long-gone predator.
Fog and rain. The stream runs brown, as if to match the woods and meadow. The pink flamingo in my garden is looking distinctly out of place.
Cold with mellow sunshine. A vociferous blue jay pauses to swipe its bill vigorously against the branch and scratch its face with one foot.
The traffic noise is deafening; even the crows are hard to hear. The air starts to shimmer with what Chinese call maomaoyu—fine-hair rain.
A raven flies croaking toward the sun, which is just breaking through the clouds. The rain-soaked forest is suddenly, shimmeringly aglow.
A tulip-tree leaf under the drip line cups its portion of rain. A chipmunk hidden in the dead grass shrieks when I turn the page of my book.