A brown thrasher’s loud improvisations. For a moment I think some new type of tree is in bloom, but it’s only the rain beading every twig.
Plummer’s Hollow
Two wild turkeys cross the road into the woods, their dark feathers shining in the sun as they disappear into the equally lustrous laurel.
In the mid-morning quiet, weak sunlight sets the blossoming maple trees aglow: clouds of red and orange all along the woods’ edge.
Rainy and warm. Seven deer file into the yard and spread out to graze. One kicks up her heels and dances sideways, as if she’s still a fawn.
The miniature daffodils are in full bloom, looking more than a little unreal against the brown yard and woods with the sun shining through.
A galaxy of sparkles in the yard where the sunlight hits a patch of frost. The fourth-quarter moon hangs low over the trees. A grouse drums.
Windy and cold. A ladybird beetle creeps slowly across the porch floor, warmed by intermittent sun. Buds swell yellow on the lilac bush.
Red-winged blackbirds calling in the fog. The springhouse phoebe appears to have found a mate. They take turns fluttering under the eaves.
In the thick fog, a wild turkey on the road looks like the small dinosaur that she is, stretching her neck to peck stones for her gizzard.
The last of the snow has vanished, and the air shimmers with fine rain. A foraging rabbit keeps pausing to scratch its ear.
A bright period between showers. Coming around the bend in the road, the flashing yellow light on the roof of the meter-reader’s truck.
Clouds gather and, over the course of an hour, disappear again. A small red spider rappels down from my glasses onto the red porch floor.
Warm and windy. Great mobs of dried leaves cartwheel out of the woods. A piece of milkweed down drifts past, liberated from its seed.
Fast moving cumulus clouds. When the sun comes out, it glistens on the mountain laurel leaves in the woods and in the yard, the periwinkle.