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.
frost
11/3/2021
First frost, and the thinnest small boat of a moon riding low on the horizon with the bright darkness of its cargo.
12/11/2020
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.
11/29/2020
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.
10/17/2020
As the rising sun glimmers through the trees, birch and walnut leaves begin to fall, the first hard frost glittering on the ground.
12/8/2019
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.
11/9/2019
-5°C. The wilted and faded lilac leaves have acquired mold-like coats of frost. A white-breasted nuthatch’s nasal two notes.
1/28/2019
The fast scrabbling of claws on black locust bark: another squirrel’s in heat. Dead grass blades along the stream are rococo with hoarfrost.
12/27/2018
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.
12/5/2018
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.
11/8/2018
All the most supine stiltgrass has grown white fur in the night. Two nuthatches foraging at the woods’ edge react badly to my sneeze.
10/25/2018
Patches of white in the yard—the first frost. So late! But then the oaks are still green, the sky still constrained by leaves.
3/31/2018
On the first morning of my married life, the sky is as blue as it gets. Phoebe, rooster, bluebird. The sparkle of frost gives way to sheen.
3/11/2018
An achingly blue sky, and the sun lower than it should be thanks to the tyranny of clocks. Crows yell. The ground sparkles with frost.