A black walnut crosses the yard, powered by the usual gray squirrel propulsion and planting system. A close rifle shot echoes off the ridge.
black walnut
The ethereal notes of cedar waxwings on the wind. In the now-leafless lilac, I spot a black walnut wedged into a cluster of small branches.
In the cold rain, a squirrel sits on an elm limb with its back to the trunk working on a walnut, its tail folded over its head like a hood.
A walnut sits on the railing in its soggy, rotten husk like an obscene offering. Two distant fire sirens: when one peaks, the other troughs.
The brackens in my yard have turned from brown to burgundy. High in a walnut tree, a squirrel checks every webworm tent for unfallen nuts.
Many small birds chasing and gleaning. An old fall webworm tent hanging from a walnut tree gets a thorough going-over from a winter wren.
With the walnut leaves down, I can once again see the line of aspens: still green, still full of ambiguous gestures. (Hello? Get lost?)
I’m looking at a walnut when it lets go and thuds to the ground—the branch rocks like a diving board. A vireo calls softly from the woods.
The walnut tree behind the house keeps knocking on my bedroom roof with its fat green fists. I start thinking fondly of the chainsaw.
A squirrel leaping between treetops miscalculates and falls 40 feet to the ground. It lies stunned for a minute, walnut still in its teeth.
Blue jays yelling in the treetops. Wind speed is less than three knots, but still there’s a steady shower of yellow walnut leaves.
A squirrel hangs by its hind feet to pick a pair of walnuts, drops one, climbs off with the other in its teeth. The day darkens into rain.
A small brown butterfly flutters low over the porch floor, checking out the three brown walnut leaflets, one of which trembles in its wake.
A thin bead curtain hangs from the walnut tree: tiny tussock moth caterpillars, curled tight as question marks, rappelling down to the road.