Cool beginning to another scorcher. A fly goes for a walk down a porch column. The thud of a walnut on the road.
black walnut
7/17/2022
Another phantom shower, existing only on the weather app. A firefly wanders past, looking for a walnut leaf to spend the day under.
6/1/2022
A black-and-white warbler probes the cracks between the floorboards for soft bits of grit and hair to line its nest, high in a walnut tree.*
*Or not. See here.
5/30/2022
Clear and cool. A gnatcatcher scoops a caterpillar off a walnut leaf and swipes it against a branch three times before swallowing.
2/4/2022
Dawn, and all the stream’s voices are raised. A squirrel finds a black walnut sticking out of a snowbank and races off with it.
12/10/2021
Finches cluster high in a black birch, gorging in silence. A squirrel digs up a walnut and re-buries it on the other side of the road.
12/7/2021
Cold, overcast, and nearly still: my clouds of breath drift sideways, leading my eye to a half-shell of black walnut, its empty brain case.
12/1/2021
The first day of meteorological winter. It’s warm. I-99 is barely audible. The sound of teeth on walnut shell alternates with scold-calls.
10/7/2021
Rain and fog. With the goldenrod going gray, the yellow has moved from the meadow to the woods’ edge: spicebush, walnut, birch, elm, tulip tree.
10/6/2021
Overcast at dawn. The silence is broken by the periodic splats of black walnuts. A barred owl’s single, round note.
9/30/2021
Clear and still. A double splat of black walnuts onto the driveway. At the top of an oak, a crow grooms itself with a soft clicking sound.
9/25/2021
The unfamiliar clouds of my breath. A phoebe calling in the sun-drenched crown of a walnut tree, beneath that old slice of apple, the moon.
8/8/2021
Walnut leaves have begun to yellow, as leaf miners turn the locust trees brown. A red-eyed vireo warbles on and on.
8/7/2021
Cool and humid. An Acadian flycatcher gathers breakfast from the leaves of a walnut sapling. Sleep still tugs at my eyelids.