At the base of the stone wall, a raised figure eight where a vole has ventured out, tunneling just under the surface of the new-fallen snow.
snow
Scattered snowflakes coursing back and forth. I’m struck by the illusion of a hive-mind, scouts out searching for a new safe-hold.
Under the deer-ravaged rosebush in the middle of the yard, a round patch of blood some three inches wide, turned pink by a dusting of snow.
The snow that began falling at 6:00 has softened to slush; the skunk prints that crossed the garden are gone. Fog fills the woods.
The sound of a single-propeller plane—a rare thing nowadays—draws my eye to a hawk circling a thermal high over the ridge’s glossy snowpack.
A rattle of sleet gives way to the hush of snow, then the tapping of freezing rain, then back to snow. A squirrel never stops its scolding.
Three thin continents of drifted snow on the porch floor shape-shift every time the wind picks up, losing a headland, gaining a peninsula.
Snow falling in large, wet clusters: I watch the woods whiten. Small clouds of powder in a multiflora rosebush as snowbirds dart in and out.
Just one degree above freezing, but most of last night’s wet snow has fallen from the trees, rococo filigree replaced by stark modernism.
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.
Wind and a little new snow have softened the landscape’s hardest edges. The birches squeak like beginning fiddlers trying to get in tune.
Chickadees scold something hidden in the treetops. I can’t stop looking at a dried bromegrass leaf—its ornate curlicues against the snow.
Snowflakes swirl clockwise around the yard. A red-tailed hawk flies over, flapping hard, pale feathers almost invisible in the falling snow.
A squirrel leaps through the snow-laden lilac up by the other house, chasing the juncos. Their high, tinny alarm-calls sound like laughter.