A thin wash of cloud at sunrise, and the yard gray with frost. A raven flies low over the hollow giving two-syllable croaks.
frost
Saturday November 06, 2021
Cold and very still. Every leaf in the myrtle patch—Grandma’s legacy—is edged in white. Sunrise stains the western ridge blood-red.
Thursday November 04, 2021
25F degrees at dawn. A bat flies low over the meadow as the white-throated sparrows tune up. Frost-encrusted blades of grass seem to glow.
Wednesday November 03, 2021
First frost, and the thinnest small boat of a moon riding low on the horizon with the bright darkness of its cargo.
Friday December 11, 2020
Weak sunlight — enough to melt the hard frost, make the ground glisten, conjure up a bit of mist and a Carolina wren’s hearty burble.
Sunday November 29, 2020
Clear and very still. The soft twittering of sparrows drinking from the stream, up where the sun has begun to melt off the heavy frost.
Saturday October 17, 2020
As the rising sun glimmers through the trees, birch and walnut leaves begin to fall, the first hard frost glittering on the ground.
Sunday December 08, 2019
Soft light on the hard frost: more glimmer than glitter. A pileated woodpecker’s kak kak kak like a high-pitched engine trying to start.
Saturday November 09, 2019
-5°C. The wilted and faded lilac leaves have acquired mold-like coats of frost. A white-breasted nuthatch’s nasal two notes.
Monday January 28, 2019
The fast scrabbling of claws on black locust bark: another squirrel’s in heat. Dead grass blades along the stream are rococo with hoarfrost.
Thursday December 27, 2018
Hoarfrosted grass glitters in the sun. A nuthatch calling up in the woods sounds more certain than I’ve ever felt about anything in my life.
Wednesday December 05, 2018
Under a white sky, the small white car of the meter man, and a heavy frost. Two nuthatches are having a frank exchange of views.
Thursday November 08, 2018
All the most supine stiltgrass has grown white fur in the night. Two nuthatches foraging at the woods’ edge react badly to my sneeze.
Thursday October 25, 2018
Patches of white in the yard—the first frost. So late! But then the oaks are still green, the sky still constrained by leaves.