funny

Another cold, beautiful morning. Road workers out cleaning up trash on Route 133, thinking that green up day must be on Saturday. Saw the first dandelions emerging in a field yesterday. Bumble bees collecting pollen from them appeared simultaneously. Funny how that works.

geese

22 degrees this morning, but the grass is greening up nicely. I mentioned one of the iconic images of springtime in New England is flocks of geese flying north in a previous post, except that I haven't seen any of those this year. That's a first in what seems to be a string of firsts this year. I'm thinking that must be because we had such a mild winter that the geese never headed south in the first place.

Over railroad tracks
wild geese fly by
low on a moonlit night.
Shiki
Zen page a day calendar

a cold spring

Temperatures in the 30's with snow and sleet. We had a very mild winter, but the spring has been colder than normal. A couple of weeks ago we had readings below zero. The cold literally nipped the forsythia blossoms in the bud. Our two bushes didn't bloom at all. As far as I can remember, that has never happened before. It looks like the extreme cold affected the daffodils as well. We have some daffodils, but not nearly as many as usual.

flower

Bloodroot

When you take a flower in your hand, and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have to time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.

Georgia O'Keefe

spring

Bluets

Heading to Buffalo today and California tomorrow. It is supposed to be warm and sunny here almost indefinitely. The woodpile is almost gone. It seems that spring has finally come to the northeast. It has been spring in California for months now. Believe me I know. Robins flocking in the walnut trees in the morning there on their way north. Fruit trees in bloom. For all those in the north country, enjoy!

Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only underground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

go round

Coltsfoot, the first wildflower of the season. You ready for another go round on this, Shawn?

water

Winter is the season of ice and snow. Spring is the season of water. Ice on rivers and ponds, what there was of it, is gone. Ducks and geese to be seen there. Ducks are the personification of buoyancy in almost every way; in their spirit, in flight, bobbing on the water. They gladden the heart. Kayaks on cars, and boats on trailers on Route 7. Fisherman heading to the Otter Creek in Middleburg. Sound of rain on the bricks outside the front door.

heart

Driving home the other evening when I heard them, the sound of peepers coming from the usual spot, the wetlands at the Y in the road on Rte 133. There are a few events that herald the arrival of spring in New England to one and all, crocuses, geese flying north, the smell of boiling maple syrup. There is probably no sound that says that spring is here more than the sound of the peepers from a roadside marsh on a warm spring evening. It goes right to your heart.

sun and shade

Snow in the fall and in the spring is a mixed blessing at best. It does provide some opportunities to observe some of the phenomena from the natural world. I think because there isn't an existing snow pack as in the dead of winter, one can observe the effects of sun, shadow, terrain and wind. Snow disappears most quickly in areas like south facing slopes, and where snow hasn't been able to collect, like in depressions and on the lee side of bushes and trees. The sun causes snow to melt, and shade helps it to remain. There is a road nearby that I often walk that goes north to south. The snow melts more quickly on east facing slopes, and remains on the west facing slopes. I think the sun is strongest in the afternoon which causes it to have a greater impact on west facing slopes. 

teeth

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 winter 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

Blossom

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

Two Tramps in Mud Time
Robert Frost

March? try January

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

cruel

Woke up today to temperatures in the teens with a wintry snow. Went outside with Eliza. She wanted to make a snowman, but it was too cold. We threw rocks in the creek instead. Snow at this time of the year is known as "poor man's fertilizer." It is amazing how things can green up after an April snow. Kind of nice to have the Jones family here this time of year. Andy remarked that he was able to see the terrain in the back for the first time because the leaves on the trees have not come out yet. Got to show Eliza the fire burning in the wood stove.

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain...
T.S. Eliot

green

Greenery is starting to appear on the willows and aspen trees. The last to lose their leaves in the fall are the first to get them back in the spring. Grass is starting to green up in rills and low places. Neighbor burning leaves in his back yard.