Clear and cold, the ground gray with frost. Sunrise reddens the western ridge. A propeller plane fades into the distance.
frost
11/13/2023
22F/-5C at sunrise. Every twig and leaf is lightly frosted. I watch my clouds of breath drift into the yard.
11/11/2023
A few patches of frost in the yard as the sun clears the ridgetop. Juncos move through the rambling old lilac, its last few leaves faded nearly to yellow.
11/3/2023
On a cloudless, quiet mid-morning after a heavy frost, the ground remains white only in the shadows. A single orange leaf falls from the tall tulip poplar, spiraling slowly down into the dead goldenrods.
10/31/2023
As the moonlight fades, pale patches remain—a killing frost. The woods’ edge is nearly bare of leaves below the brick-red crowns of the oaks.
10/23/2023
First frost here and there like someone’s first white hairs. I crunch through it en route to the top of the field to watch the dawn approaching from 50 miles away.
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.
4/19/2023
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.
3/30/2023
Clear and cold. Frost glitters in the low-angled sun. The miniature daffodils are frozen in positions of prayer.
2/26/2023
Daffodils are out of the ground around the old dog statue, the surrounding yard moldy-looking from the light frost. A distant bluebird.
1/11/2023
Still air and a heavy frost. A pair of ravens fly side by side over the porch, one calling like a crow—falsetto—the other like a death rattle.
12/9/2022
Cold and very clear. My shady yard is a refuge for last night’s frost. A feral cat emerges from under the house and gives me a baleful look.
12/2/2022
The frosted meadow glitters in the sun. A scrabbling of squirrel claws on bark. Off to the south, a raven croaks; to the north, crows.
11/15/2022
Heavy frost in the yard. I scuttle about preparing for a scheduled seven-hour power outage that never comes. My tea grows cold.