The sun shines through thin clouds; tree shadows on the snow are light gray rather than blue. A red-bellied woodpecker trills over and over.
snow
February 9, 2013
Wind and a little new snow have softened the landscape’s hardest edges. The birches squeak like beginning fiddlers trying to get in tune.
February 7, 2013
Chickadees scold something hidden in the treetops. I can’t stop looking at a dried bromegrass leaf—its ornate curlicues against the snow.
February 6, 2013
Snowflakes swirl clockwise around the yard. A red-tailed hawk flies over, flapping hard, pale feathers almost invisible in the falling snow.
February 3, 2013
A squirrel leaps through the snow-laden lilac up by the other house, chasing the juncos. Their high, tinny alarm-calls sound like laughter.
February 1, 2013
A squirrel walks slowly through the woods, searching its memory, then stops, digs through the fresh snow and comes up with a nut.
January 31, 2013
Blowing snow plasters my boots, propped up on the railing. The creek is living in the past as usual, roaring with last night’s heavy rains.
January 28, 2013
Where a crevasse leads to an underground stream, a small hole has opened in the snowy yard, a dark ear throbbing with its own pulse.
January 27, 2013
Blue shadows on the snow, and the sun so bright, sparkles gleam like lighthouse beacons even from within some of the thinner shadows.
January 26, 2013
This morning’s stillness is made of fresh snow, a distant jet, the quiet squeaks of a downy woodpecker and a dove’s whistling wings.
January 24, 2013
New snow on every twig: a strange fur, this fine, dry stuff that forms so far below freezing. A vole rustles in the leaves beside the porch.
January 21, 2013
A slow snow. I love that brief period before the walk is completely buried: the random mottling, the impression of a great, anonymous crowd.
January 19, 2013
After a cold night, the temperature climbs to 40 by mid-morning and the snow loses its hard sparkle, flattens into a shining white pelt.
January 17, 2013
A line of tracks from under the porch to the creek and back look like the prints a very small man walking on his hands would make: raccoon.