Two nuthatches trade insults from adjacent trees, yelling through their noses like warring doormen in their blue-gray livery.
December 4, 2007
The wind no longer howls, but now the merest breeze provokes a chorus of moans and shrieks. The oaks are finally almost all naked.
December 3, 2007
Sometime in the night the rain stopped, the temperature edged above freezing, and all the new armor fell from the trees. Snow in the air.
December 2, 2007
Quiet except for the distant moan of a truck’s brakes and the staticky sound of sleet, giving way to a heavier ordnance of freezing rain.
December 1, 2007
Scarlet oak leaf: blown sideways, it still manages to get a few spirals in. Bluejay: it takes me a second to recognize its solitary note.
November 30, 2007
Rising late, I get a faceful of sun. I watch the resident naturalist’s blaze-orange vest and cap appearing and disappearing among the trees.
November 29, 2007
“Crepuscular”: such a weird word, conjuring up ancient forests, twisted mossy forms. Not this dawn, filled with the noise of trucks.
November 28, 2007
To see the sunrise, I have to walk to the edge of the porch and look west: red ridge, the gibbous moon high overhead, a pair of ravens.
November 27, 2007
Shifting patterns of gray in a sky that has just stopped raining. A crow caws seven times. Suddenly everything acquires an orange tint.
November 26, 2007
—Every season is deer season; this is the opening day of rifle season. —Where are the rifles, then? —Zipped up in their cases, staying dry.
November 25, 2007
Clear, cold and very still. Sun in the treetops. A black cat steals out from underneath the porch and sets off all the squirrel alarms.
November 24, 2007
Last night, the ground sparkled; now it’s the color of moonlight forgotten by the moon. A chickadee lands on the lawn and has a taste.
November 23, 2007
Titmice and chickadees inspect the lilac, which lost half its leaves overnight. Déjà vu: they were in my dreams, these birds. These spirits.
November 22, 2007
Something approaches at a slow shuffle, gray in the gray light: porcupine. He threads the thistle patch, squeezes under the porch.