43F/6C an hour after sunrise. Not a cloud in the sky. Black walnuts crash down at random intervals.
cold
5/18/2023
High-altitude murk gives the low-angled light a timeless feel. It’s barely above freezing, but the birds still sound ecstatic. Tennessee or Blackburnian warbler? That accelerating buzz…
5/3/2023
For the third morning in a row, the thermometer hovers just above freezing as drizzle falls. Woodpeckers are already at work, beating their heads against trees.
4/25/2023
Frost in the yard. How many tender young leaves will collapse and blacken at the sun’s touch? A goldfinch warbles in the treetops. A raven gargles.
4/24/2023
Three degrees below freezing, but no frost. The dawn chorus seems reduced in volume, though the towhees and one tom turkey aren’t holding back.
4/19/2023
Below freezing at sunrise, but a breeze seems to have staved off frost. Will oak flowers survive? Will wildlife thrive or starve? So much depends on one or two degrees difference now.
4/18/2023
A cold and rainy dawn. The thermometer’s red pointer crosses the Centigrade zero—a null set. I say an atheist’s prayer for all the new leaves.
3/30/2023
Clear and cold. Frost glitters in the low-angled sun. The miniature daffodils are frozen in positions of prayer.
3/15/2023
Clear and cold, with a bitter wind to remind me it’s actually March. I watch the sun through the corner of my eye as it climbs through the ridgetop trees.
2/4/2023
-14C at dawn and very still. A sound like a rifle shot as some tree’s heartwood splits open. Two distant bugle notes from a Canada goose.
2/3/2023
-12C with a wind. Which one of those small pink clouds is responsible for these snowflakes? My oil furnace trembles under the house like a wounded animal.
2/1/2023
I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this: bitter cold with the ground mostly bare. Chickadees are having a fracas. Snow drifts down from a clearing sky.
1/22/2023
Sky the color of faded jeans. It’s cold. The crash of a dead limb falling from the treetops where two female squirrels are eluding suitors.
1/15/2023
Cold (20F/-7C) and clear. The half-moon is an ear cocked to the west, where sunrise spreads down the ridge like an orange rash.