Thick fog. Snow melt-water drips onto the porch roof. A sudden scrabbling of squirrel claws on locust bark—that waterfall sound.
snow
January 10, 2014
A red-bellied woodpecker descends an arched locust limb tap by tap, its tail sweeping off the new snow—white puffs against the white sky.
January 9, 2014
A new half-inch of snow returns the yard to blankness and hides the driveway ice. Neat hoof prints stretch and skew wildly into a slide.
January 6, 2014
Freezing rain and sleet have turned the snow as rough as a lizard’s skin. A wren hops through the lilac, poking at the ground with his bill.
December 26, 2013
The snow seems on the verge of stopping for several hours. The trees turn white. My guests go out and return with snow in their hair.
December 23, 2013
Parallel relics of the plow, the only snow yet to go glows in the dim light. A song sparrow by the spring house sings his spring song.
December 22, 2013
The ongoing warmth and rain have reduced the snow to scattered patches. Above the roar of the creek, a flock of goldfinches whistling.
December 21, 2013
Warm rain. Fog rises from the melting snowpack, lifting and sinking in obedience to imperceptible changes in the air.
December 20, 2013
A gray, dank morning. The light tapping of meltwater on the porch roof. A single squirrel forages in the trees at the edge of the woods.
December 19, 2013
Dimples stipple the snow below the porch where icicles dripped. Sparrow tracks circle a dame’s-rocket seed-head bent down by the last storm.
December 18, 2013
Snow must be falling in the darkness—I feel the flakes on my hand. The porch shivers as the furnace under the house kicks on.
December 17, 2013
The curious satisfaction of watching snow erase my own footprints. Up in the woods, the woodpeckers too are busy fixing what isn’t broken.
December 16, 2013
With deep snow, the ground is so much smoother, and the sun can stretch across it now without getting lost in a thousand holes and hollows.
December 15, 2013
Sometime in the night, the rabbit ventured out for a quick snack on lilac bark. Its tracks are half buried by still more snow.