Clouds like a thick, gray quilt. The creek has sunk to a whisper, and the threadbare snowpack crackles like wax paper under the squirrels’ feet.
snow
A fresh half-inch of snow turns the woods’ edge into calligraphy. Then an inversion layer brings traffic noise, a shimmer of freezing drizzle, the tut-tutting of a Carolina wren.
Fine snow slowing to a stop by sunrise and resuming 45 minutes later. It’s quiet enough to hear what the creek is saying both before and after it travels under my yard.
Overcast, but with more brightness than gloom. On the forest floor, a barely-there lacework of snow. Somewhere in between, a goldfinch’s warble.
A drumbeat of meltwater dripping onto the porch roof as the sky clears, just in time for the sun to top the ridge. My bootprints from last night’s walk have grown huge and dark.
Fog above the fresh snow—a paler shade of white. A gray squirrel thrusts her head into the ground and comes up with a white cap and a black walnut.
The wind has dropped, leaving a dusting of snow, and the sky is a patchwork of white and gray. A rifle booms from down-hollow. The creek gurgles on.
For twenty minutes after sunrise, my front yard seethes with juncos, all flutter and twitter as they glean seeds from old weeds. I go down later to inspect: winding lines of double arrows in the snow.
Wind and snow—a fresh two inches on everything. Sun-colored holes open in the gray clouds and swiftly close again. The cold creeps in through my coat.
Snow flurries at dawn, the ground more light than dark. A screech owl trills softly up on the ridge as the phone warms my pocket, installing an update.
Rain zebra-striped with snow; the woods more wet than white. A sodden squirrel trots down the road with a black walnut between her teeth.
Snowmelt dripping from the eaves. When the sun peeks through the clouds, it becomes a bead curtain. The wren is singing.
Out before dawn with the first snow of the year landing cold kisses on my face. The ground glows pale in the darkness. When I get up to take a walk an hour later, my lap and coat shed their new layer of fur.
Four hours before the equinox, the ground is white, with more snow swirling down. The miniature daffodils dangle from their stalks like deflated balloons.