An hour after the last raindrops, wet leaves glisten as the sun glimmers through thin clouds. The sound of teeth chiseling through a walnut shell. The stems of bent stiltgrass in the meadow begin to redden.
gray squirrel
Cool and mostly clear at mid-morning. A gray squirrel continuing to scold after the threat has moved on sounds like a rusty hinge. The drone of a single-prop plane fades in the distance.
Overcast and cool. Pieces of black walnut husk rain down from a squirrel’s breakfast. I remember the walnut husk maggot fly that landed on my armrest yesterday, its elegant striped wings and strange green eyes.
A cool morning with the sky mostly clear and sound out of the east: the limestone quarry’s reverse-chirping trucks, muffled clanks and booms. A squirrel high in the tree next to the road picks a walnut, sniffs it, and lets it fall with a crash.
Overcast but bright. Neither warm nor cool. A Cooper’s hawk dives at a squirrel on a walnut tree at the woods’ edge, misses, then takes fright when the squirrel turns and charges at it, and lands on a nearby limb to take stock and ruffle its feathers before taking off.
Overcast and cool, with showers of yellow black walnut leaflets in the slightest breeze. A gray squirrel climbs a small tree next to the lilac, presses its snout to each of three walnuts, and climbs back down.
Breezy, cool and humid. Two amorous gray squirrels at the edge of the woods make one branch dance. One of the hundreds of native species of little brown moths flutters in to shelter under the eaves.
Almost all the local marmots appear within the space of a minute: a groundhog pokes its head up beside the porch, a chipmunk is chased out of the black walnut tree beside the road by a gray squirrel, and a red squirrel scolds from the springhouse.
Thin cloud, yet the sun’s still strong enough for leaf-glimmer and the shimmer of spider-silk strands already stringing tree to tree. A gray squirrel chases a red squirrel past my feet.
Cold, clear, and still, with heavy frost silvering the yard. A red squirrel tries to get its nerve up to run past me, but fails and retreats to the garden, where it sits glaring at a gray squirrel under the lilac.
The sun glimmers through thin clouds and a murk of pollen, gathering strength as it clears the trees. A gray squirrel foraging on the ground dashes for cover at another squirrel’s “bird of prey” alarm. The bird of prey fails to materialize.
Foggy and warm. Two nuthatches at the woods’ edge tangle in mid-air, tumbling a dozen feet before retreating to separate tree trunks. Near the top of the big tulip tree, a gray squirrel is leaping from limb to limb.
In thick fog, the bright flesh of lilac and tulip tree limbs barked by squirrels for their nests. The last few patches of snow look as bedraggled as old bandages.
Flurries starting in fifteen minutes, says the weather app, and fifteen minutees later the air is full of flakes wandering this way and that, every bit as sentient as AI bots. By the time they stop half an hour later, I’m a snowman. A squirrel carrying a walnut walks right under my chair.