lilies of the field

Trillium

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither to they spin.

And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Matthew 6:28-29

swallows

 Richard Carter on flickr

Temps in the mid 70's. Rolling up my long sleeve shirt at work. Women in shorts at College of St. Joseph. Allyn bringing the summer clothes down from the attic. The swallows have returned in the back yard. I wish I could glide and soar through life the way they do.

top down

Hepatica

Willows starting to bud out. Vintage cars seen on Route 7; cars that spent the winter in the garage. People cleaning brush and leaves from their yards in Proctor. Convertible with the top down on Dorr Drive.

sky dance

Kim/Doug/John, what is this?

Thunderstorms at the Zen Center. Opening windows in car, home, and office. Snack bar open in Center Rutland. Young man in a tee shirt washing his car in his driveway. Viewing the annual sky dance of the woodcock along the cross roads in Ira

eggs

Back from sesshin. Temps in the 60's. Was out hiking in the back looking for Round-leaf Yellow Violets to check off of my wildflower list (no luck). Came across the place where the Chambers' had gotten their tractor stuck in the muck when brush hogging last year. There were two deep grooves in the mud. The grooves were filled with water, and the water had some gelatinous clusters of eggs, either salamander or frogs eggs. I read in the Rutland Herald that, pound for pound, there are more animals in the woods that have emerged from vernal pools than everything else combined. Later in the day I saw a salamander, and a frog dart away in another pond.

coltsfoot

Coltsfoot. You're welcome Shawn

Your humble scribe from the other side of the creek will be away from the computer for a little over a week.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill

You know how it is with an April day

When the sun is out and the wind is still

You're one month on in the middle of May.

But if you so much as dare to speak

A cloud comes over the sunlit arch

A wind comes off a frozen peak

And you're two months back in the middle of March

Two Tramps In Mud Time

Robert Frost

astronomical fuss

Markarian's Chain in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster

zAmbOni on flickr

The other night was clear, and Pete and I decided to take a crack at the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. It is a veritable snarl of galaxies, galaxies, in the constellation Virgo. Some of the galaxies are Messier objects, some are not. I've no doubt that many an innocent Messier aspirant has ventured into the cluster, never to be heard from again. The evening quickly evolved into a situation where I was driving (manning the telescope), and Pete was riding shotgun, navigating the star chart.

"See the three stars?"

"Yep."

"Take a hard right. Field of view entering from the three o'clock direction."

We made good progress. After finding about three M items, Pete said those were the only ones he'd ever seen there before. Any others we found would be new for him as well as me. We ended up finding all of them. There are about a dozen. Pete said that completed his journey through the Messier catalogue which consists of 110 celestial sights. He started his search when he was seven years old, out viewing the night sky with his father. It turned into a solemn and momentous  occasion. When I left, Pete was plugging away on the Herschel objects. There are about 400 of those.

We are meeting up with John & Ellen in Buffalo in May. John has asked me to bring along my telescope. He appears to be interested in finding out what all the astronomical fuss is about. I am happy to oblige.

dandelions

Deer have begun feeding in the field behind the house recently. There were as many as a dozen out there the other night. They looked good. Fox came rambling through the same field the other evening. Columns of ice falling off the rock walls along the roadways. Running the wood stove in the evenings only. The path to the compost pile is no longer knee deep in snow. Dandelion shoots over by production.

now

I came out of work yesterday, and it was in the 70's and sunny. The peepers were calling from the wetlands next to the office. I had forgotten that there was even such a thing as peepers; and yet, here they are.

There exists only the present instant...a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago, and as it will be a thousand years hence.
Meister Eckhart (Christian mystic)
Zen page a day calendar

mystery

On Saturday I was out cleaning up around the wood pile. I found these crocuses growing in the lawn. I don't ever remember seeing them there before. I asked Allyn if maybe she had planted them last fall, and she hadn't. There are some crocuses growing in the garden not too far away, but they are a different color than these. They are a beautiful mystery.

playing possum

picture taker 2 on flickr

Yesterday evening, all the sugar houses in Ira were boiling like crazy. Shows what I know.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake, and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

Two Tramps In Mud Time
Robert Frost

buds

anali2170 on flickr

Sunny day yesterday. Walking over to production in the sunshine, just wanted to keep on walking. Sound of the Beatles from the open window of a car alongside at a red light. Buds appearing on an aspen tree at work, and on a maple in the May's yard. Sugaring season must be drawing to a close.

blue green

A rainy day yesterday, worms on the sidewalk at work. Turkeys in a corn field in Clarendon. Ground hog crossing the road in Proctor. The water in the Ira brook turning a beautiful blue green.

rain

55 degrees, and windy on the morning walk. I actually took off my jacket. Pockets of warm wind, then cold. It seemed the air was coldest in the areas where the wind was blowing over the snow pack. My Dharma sister, Kathy Clarke, noticed the sound of the rain, not snow, against her window panes yesterday. Shrill call of a house wren when walking to production during inventory yesterday.

The rain is falling all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It falls on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.
Robert Louis Stevenson

heading north

Sightings and sounds of geese heading north. Their cries are the essence of the force of life. Canada geese and snow geese seen resting in New Haven. Multiple flocks of geese seen in the skies over Middlebury. Various sizes, altitudes, and directions of the flocks just like last fall; except now they're heading north. Ducks observed on Wood's Pond in Brandon, buoyant in form and spirit.

crystal teeth

from Muffet on flickr

The  water for which we have to look

In summertime with a witching wand,

In every wheelrut's now a brook,

In every print of a hoof a pond.

Be glad of water, but don't forget

The lurking frost in the earth beneath

That will steal forth after the sun is set

And show on the water its crystal teeth.

Two Tramps in Mud Time

Robert Frost