Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow
A cold wind and enough clouds to keep frost at bay, though I doubt the tender young leaves and blossoms will be so lucky tonight. A winter wren burbles by the springhouse. High on the trunk of the big tulip tree, the white breast of a brown creeper inches skyward.
Cold and overcast after a night of rain. The creek is a full chorus. A crow alights in the big tulip tree, breaks off a twig and carries it away.
Foggy and warm. Two nuthatches at the woods’ edge tangle in mid-air, tumbling a dozen feet before retreating to separate tree trunks. Near the top of the big tulip tree, a gray squirrel is leaping from limb to limb.
In thick fog, the bright flesh of lilac and tulip tree limbs barked by squirrels for their nests. The last few patches of snow look as bedraggled as old bandages.
Three or four slow-moving squirrels crowd onto the big tulip tree. But there’s a loner 50 feet away, diving repeatedly into the snow as if unable to locate a buried nut. After a while, he retreats into the canopy to eat black birch seeds.
Clear and cold. Two red squirrels chase around the bole of the big tulip tree, chittering madly. Threadbare as it is, the snow cover still glitters in all the colors of the rainbow.
A mackerel sky slowly clearing off by mid-morning. A Carolina wren trills in the distance. The slightest of breezes makes the tulip tree’s remaining leaves tremble.
Red sky behind red leaves at sunrise. In the yard, big winds have stripped the tulip tree of all but its smallest leaves—the sheerest of dresses.
Wind breaking up the yellow-bellied clouds. Tulip tree samaras spin like the blades of invisible helicopters—a whole squadron headed out into the meadow.
Bright periods alternate with gloom on a cool, cloudy morning, with an intermittent breeze paging through the tulip tree leaves. A sound like the clacking of a typewriter as a squirrel trots across the metal roof overhead.
Early-morning rain past, a chill breeze stirs in the tulip poplar beside the springhouse, four-lobed leaves waving like jazz hands on a thousand-armed bodhisattva, some green, some yellow.
Partly cloudy and cool at sunrise, with more yellow and orange leaves than I’ve ever seen this early in the fall: not just walnut and black gum but black birch, tulip poplar, and even a few maples, just as our 30 acres of goldenrod approach their peak of bloom. I’m reminded of the Chinese name for San Francisco: old gold mountain.
Cool and clear. Sunlight floods the crown of the tall tulip tree, which releases one yellow leaf into the still air, rocking from side to side as it falls.
Clear, cool, and dry at last. Shadows have sharp outlines; patches of sun in the woods or meadow glow like places apart. A small breeze inhabits the top of the tulip tree, paging through its leaves.