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.
frost
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.
10/29/2022
Pale columns of sky all along the ridge. Frost as white as my breath. A rising tide of chirps and trills as sunrise draws near.
10/9/2022
One degree above freezing at sunrise. A breeze reshuffles the walnut leaves on the porch. I find small patches of frost up by the barn.
2/6/2022
As the sun rises, it descends from icy treetops to hoarfrosted lower branches. It’s quiet. The dial thermometer’s pointer jumps from 8 to 10.
1/31/2022
Bitter cold. A garlic mustard skeleton hanging over the small hole in the yard that goes down to an underground stream is shaggy with frost.
1/27/2022
Zero degrees. Sun through bare branches—a shining fur of hoarfrost. Two ravens fly in low and circle my mother’s house.
12/21/2021
Solstice, and the ground is white with frost. The stream has subsided to the quietest of gurgles. Assorted chirps from sparrows and the inevitable wren.