Cold (-10°C) and quiet, save for my mother’s periodic hollering at the squirrels on their back porch. My clouds of breath rise straight up.
cold
The one-time slush pile in the yard looks hard as a wind-dried bone. The tall pines sigh in their sleep. I begin to lose feeling in my toes.
It’s less frigid this morning. The mockingbird overwintering in the barberry hedge next to the shed lands on a branch in the almost sunshine.
The thermometer’s big red arrow is at -10°C. A downy woodpecker works the wood’s edge, exploring the bases of trees, chirping loudly.
Raw and wintry, with snow on the ground and an iron wind. I muse on the convergent evolution of “December” and “dismember”.
Cold. With the heavy inversion layer, a jay in the yard who sounds as if he’s practicing scales must compete with the whine of tires on I-99.
The dial thermometer’s red arrow has just missed 0°C. A black tiger moth caterpillar is curled by the stoop like a dropped comma.
Cold, with an icy breeze that creeps under both my hoods. A dusting of snow. The distant sound of a door slamming shut.
-12°C with a wind. A raven high overhead is having, by the sound of it, a splendid time. I pull a second hood over my hat.
A skim of wet snow came in with the cold front. The big dial thermometer shivers on the wall—vibrations from the furnace under the floor.
Overcast and bitter cold. A Carolina wren comes out from under the house and rummages in the dry leaves behind the oil tanks.
Bright sun, bone-chilling wind. The hillside has lost its white blanket, which makes it feel even colder. The clouds are again worlds apart.
Snow fine as fingerprint powder; it’s almost zero. Two cardinals and a jay in the crabapple tree wait their turn to drink from the spring.
Through my thick hat I can hear wind hissing in the pines, the moan of an amorous squirrel, a tree popping from the cold—loud as a gunshot.