Quiet Sunday morning. Up on the hill, a turkey gobbles once every 10 minutes. I glance up from my screen and the clear sky has turned white.
Plummer’s Hollow
Sun and wind conspire against the fresh, wet snow clinging to every twig. A towhee calls in the midst of his labors to uncover the ground.
A half-inch of snow on the ground at sunrise. I look away, at the blue-gray sky. The bare trees shake and chafe, rattle and groan.
Warmer, and the daffodils have once more managed to stand up. There goes the meter-reader’s white pickup, topped by a flashing orange light.
Quiet except for a distant plane. A pair of squirrels race nose-to-tail through the yard, slowing only when they clamber through the lilac.
Sunny but cold. One of the tall locust trees in the yard has developed a loud creak. Two field sparrows are calling, but not to each other.
A few patches of snow linger in the woods, incongruous as the first flowering shadbush trees will seem. A scatter of raindrops on the roof.
An inch of new snow and a bitter wind. Daffodils droop like old balloons. A white-throated sparrow’s song pauses and resumes one octave up.
Sunny and cool. A small brown moth flies past, fluttering hard against the wind. From the interstate to the west, the whine of a speed bike.
At sunrise, the steady drumming of rain on the roof. Buds have burst on the lilac bush–a cloud of intense green against the brown woods.
Mild and overcast. A ladybug flies by, red elytra raised like the doors on a DeLorean. A red-tailed hawk glides low through the treetops.
The daffodils laid low by wind and cold are slowly righting themselves in the strong sunlight. From the east, the sound of heavy machinery.
It’s cold. Small groups of leaves scurry this way and that. The machine-gun rattle of a downy woodpecker on an especially hard hollow limb.
After hard rain in the early hours, the sky is a patchwork of light and dark. The wail of a freight train is faintly audible above the wind.