A few flakes of snow. Valley sounds eddy on the wind. The sun makes an appearance among the ridgetop trees. | Continue reading
Fifteen minutes after sunrise, the cloud-lid lifts, and a bright seam appears above the horizon. A white-throated sparrow sings two notes and stops. | Continue reading
The mountain is loud with running water; it sounds like March. Returning from hunting, the feral cat gives me a baleful glance as she slinks under the porch. | Continue reading
Hard rain beginning to ease by late morning. Chirps and twitters become audible. The last patches of snow line the road like litter. | Continue reading
The sound of running water in the darkness. Occasional soft, sparrowy chirps as the sky brightens. Then the wren’s impatience bubbles over. | Continue reading
A clearing sky at sunrise with the sound of running water and a wren. The snow is looking threadbare, even on north-facing slopes. | Continue reading
A mottled white sky with crows to the north and ravens croaking off to the south. The snowpack is soft and granular, absorbing sound. | Continue reading
Under a gray lid of cloud, the sound of steady dripping as roofs shed their snow. A cat lying in ambush has its cover blown by chickadees. | Continue reading
Sunrise stains the western ridge barn-red as the dawn chorus of crows rises to a cacophony. High in a walnut tree, a squirrel is licking its genitals. | Continue reading
Thin clouds at sunrise with the blue just visible, like faded jeans. A crow has a brief exchange with his echo. | Continue reading
Heavily overcast at sunrise, which I’m taking on faith. The sound of a Carolina wren hopping across the porch roof. | Continue reading
Cold and still. The mid-morning sun is a faint smudge in the treetops. A flicker flutters into a barberry bush and begins to gorge. | Continue reading
A fresh skin of snow on top of the crust and the deepest day-time silence of the year. I listen to the quiet tapping of a downy woodpecker halfway up […] | Continue reading
-2F/-20C. Even under two hats and a beard, the windward side of my face turns numb. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas: bleak and frost-haunted. | Continue reading
Back after a 10-day absence, I watch a front move in: blowing curtains of white. It’s as if winter had been waiting for me. Juncos twitter and hop. | Continue reading
Heavily overcast sunrise; the only faint color comes from the ground. The great-horned owl falls silent as a nuthatch begins to call. | Continue reading
Slow snowfall in a silence punctuated only by birds. I’m tired enough that watching it feels almost like sleep. | Continue reading
The moon is still bright but the sky has begun to turn blue. Up on the ridge, something barks twice, then falls silent. | Continue reading
Cold and very clear. My shady yard is a refuge for last night’s frost. A feral cat emerges from under the house and gives me a baleful look. | Continue reading
A late-morning brightness in the clouds. A white-breasted nuthatch descending a tall black locust turns right-side-up. | Continue reading
Thin fog/low clouds. It feels as if rain could start at any moment but does not. A Carolina wren nearly drowns out the sound of traffic. | Continue reading
In the cold drizzle, a squirrel looks less gray than silver, shining dully as she crouches under the fur umbrella of her tail. | Continue reading
Cold and still. Dove wings accompany a train whistle. A red sunrise creeps down the western ridge. | Continue reading
Still haunted by dreams I can’t remember when the sun clears the ridge and sets the clouds of my breath aglow. | Continue reading
Cold rain. Four chickadees in a high-speed chase around the yard pause in the lilac for a vociferous exchange of views. | Continue reading
The frosted meadow glitters in the sun. A scrabbling of squirrel claws on bark. Off to the south, a raven croaks; to the north, crows. | Continue reading
Treetops rock and sway in the wind—a restive mountainside. A few snowflakes fly this way and that. | Continue reading
Rain-slick trees green with lichen dance in a puddle’s punctuated sky. | Continue reading
Heavily overcast at sunrise; only the ground glows a faint pink, thick with rain-slick leaves. A screech owl trills. | Continue reading
Mostly overcast and quiet, apart from the wind. A squirrel with an acorn in her mouth pauses for a split second at the end of a branch, then leaps. | Continue reading
Overcast; the smell of rain. Cattail leaves rattle faintly. A few tiny patches of snow linger in the tall grass. | Continue reading
A close shot echoes off the ridge—it’s the opening day of regular firearms deer season. The sun moves slowly through the trees, dimming, blazing. | Continue reading
Warm rain. The snow has shrunk to a few scrofulous patches in the woods. Half an hour before sunrise, a bluebird is singing. | Continue reading
The sun finally clears the ridgetop at 8:00. A crow at the compost has an exchange with a raven high overhead: caw caw caw ARK ARK ARK etc. | Continue reading
I look up from my phone: another perfect day. Tree shadows on the snow stretch from the woods’ edge to the porch. Doves flutter up on sonorous wings. | Continue reading
One last meteor leaves a faint streak in the dawn sky. That dark disc rising through the trees has a shining husk—the old moon. | Continue reading
Clear, cold (13F/-10C) and very quiet. Foraging deer have scraped a bare patch in the snow. A sliver of moon slips through the treetops. | Continue reading
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. | Continue reading
The wind dropped in the night—and so did the mercury. It’s quiet. A squirrel chisels open a walnut. The cold creeps in through layers of clothing. | Continue reading
January weather, blustery and cold—and just as in January, two gray squirrels play amorous hide-and-seek on the trunk of the big tulip poplar. | Continue reading
-3C/27F with a wind. A hunter’s pickup rumbles past. A flock of small birds flies in a tight, silent cluster over the treetops. | Continue reading
First snowfall like a goose-down quilt. How happy the white-footed mice must be, thinking it gives protection against the owls. | Continue reading
Heavy frost in the yard. I scuttle about preparing for a scheduled seven-hour power outage that never comes. My tea grows cold. | Continue reading
Heavy cloud cover. A gray squirrel chiseling open a walnut squats on a low branch with its tail curled over its head for warmth. | Continue reading
Snowflakes floating down from a patchy sky, where the third-quarter moon appears and disappears. The distant fluting of geese. | Continue reading
A lull in the rains. The transition from a watercolor world to pencil-brown and charcoal-gray is nearly complete. | Continue reading
Steady drumming of rain on the porch roof. Dark trunks disappearing into fog. A classic November day. | Continue reading
A flock of juncos at the woods’ edge, between me and the sun: shining wings against dark trunks, a blinding quiver of rays. | Continue reading