Gray and windy. The cedar tree moans against the house. A tulip poplar seed capsule comes spinning in and lands on my shoulder.
tulip tree
November 7, 2023
Breezy and warm. With each gust of wind, a flotilla of leaves sets sail from the big tulip tree, as the sun ascends a ladder of clouds.
November 3, 2023
On a cloudless, quiet mid-morning after a heavy frost, the ground remains white only in the shadows. A single orange leaf falls from the tall tulip poplar, spiraling slowly down into the dead goldenrods.
October 28, 2023
In the dawn light, the tulip poplars glow a deep orange. It’s unseasonably warm. A spring peeper calls at the edge of the woods.
September 18, 2023
Half an hour past sunrise, the top of the tall tulip poplar turns gold. But I notice that yellow leaves continue down the tree. One sails out into the goldenrod.
August 25, 2023
After a soggy night, a few more raindrops and then some brightening. A vireo starts up. The lowest branch on the tulip tree has turned yellow.
August 2, 2023
My three-year-old tulip tree has extended one last, jaunty new leaf for the season. How tall it has grown on this summer’s thunderstorms! Not to mention all the extra CO2 in the air.
July 13, 2023
Haze before the heat. The tulip poplar sprout in its circle of deer fence is waving its newest Mickey Mouse hands.
January 31, 2023
A skim of snow overnight; a front has blown in and the birds are so much quieter. But a cold, gray morning is fine for gray squirrel romance: a pair ascend a young tulip tree together, touching often, and descend the adjacent walnut tree, nose to tail.
November 20, 2022
As cold as yesterday but with orange-bellied clouds and a wind. A tulip tree seed helicopters into the yard and rises up over the house.
October 21, 2022
Two degrees below freezing and clear at sunrise. A falling tulip tree leaf lands with an audible tick.
July 20, 2022
Cool at sunrise with a restless breeze. The big tulip tree at the woods’ edge drops a few more drought-yellowed leaves.
July 7, 2022
Clear sky, sun in the treetops… “Cloudy conditions will continue all day,” my phone admonishes. The big tulip tree releases a yellow leaf.
May 9, 2022
Sunrise. A squirrel carries a freshly dug-up walnut in its mouth. The tulip tree’s leaves are already big enough to wave like a rave of one.