Little is audible over the drumming of the rain but a train horn—and of course the Carolina wren, sounding as insistently joyous as ever.
rain
December 18, 2021
Steady rain and fog at one degree above freezing: bad luck for our Christmas Bird Count. Over the rain I hear crows, nuthatches, a chickadee.
December 11, 2021
Foggy and damp on the last day of regular firearms deer season. The limbs of the old crabapple glow blueish green with lichen.
December 2, 2021
It’s damp and warmish. A red-bellied woodpecker comes silently rocketing out of the woods. The creek remains mum about last night’s rain.
October 31, 2021
The rain stops but the trees go on dripping. The sky brightens. Through newly bare spicebush branches, I can see the springhouse once again.
October 26, 2021
Breezy drizzle mixing in with falling leaves—those that twirl, those that spiral, those that somersault, those that glide.
October 25, 2021
Gibbous moon overhead through a thin veil of fog. A breeze moves through the forest, liberating the night’s rain.
October 22, 2021
Gloomy with a few drops of rain. I spot a new-to-me Virginia creeper six feet from the porch: that crimson.
October 16, 2021
The last star blinks out just as rain begins to tap on the roof. A spring pepper calls. Dawn begins to seem like a possibility.
October 10, 2021
The smell of rain without rain falling until past full daylight, and all the chirps and calls of migrants foraging and settling in to roost.
October 7, 2021
Rain and fog. With the goldenrod going gray, the yellow has moved from the meadow to the woods’ edge: spicebush, walnut, birch, elm, tulip tree.
October 5, 2021
Sunrise hidden by fog, which only turns a lighter shade of gray. Rain falling from the leaves. Leaves falling from the rain.
October 3, 2021
A low cloud ceiling gravid with rain. It’s quiet. Every few seconds, another yellow leaf zigzags down.
September 28, 2021
Thunderstorm at dawn; I rush through my shower so I can watch the rain. With each lightning flash, raindrops falling from the eaves become momentary suns.