A winter's day

A walk in the woods starts out on the seat of the tractor.

John leading the way. Manga and Owen bringing up the rear.

Tracks in the snow; rabbits, squirrels, mice, canines, even bobcat.

And then there was a mysterious track we couldn't identify.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Merry Christmas!

magnolias

Magnolia blossoms in the spring.

These are the seeds that the blossoms turn into in the fall. Beautiful either way.

colder

A lot has happened in a week. It's gotten a lot colder, temps. in the 20's at night. Basil in Allyn's front garden is done for. Moved the patio furniture up in the attic, wood rack back in the kitchen. Ice scraper from the back seat to the front seat. Leaves are gone from the maples. Snow on the tops of the mountains.

gone for a week

October 18, 1973

I am up before the sun, and make a fire. The water boils as the sun ignites the peaks, and we breakfast in sunshine on hot tea and porridge. A nutcracker is rasping in the pines, and soon the crows come, down the morning valley; cawing, they hide among long shimmering needles then glide in, bold, to walk about in the warming scent of resin, dry feet scratching on the bark of fallen trees.

Since Jang-bu cannot reach Tarakot before the evening, we have time. I walk barefoot in the grass, spreading my gear with ceremony: today, for the first time in weeks, everything will dry, a great event in expedition life. Then with my stave I prop my pack upright and sit back against the mountainside, my face in cold shade and hot sun on my arms and belly.

Pine needles dance in a light breeze against the three white sister peaks to the northwest. I sit in silence, lost in the burning hum of mountain bees. An emerald butterfly comes to my knee to dry its wings, gold wings with black specks above, white polka dots beneath. Through the frozen atmosphere, the sun is burning.

In the clearness of this Himalayan air,  mountains draw near, and in such splendor, tears come quietly to my eyes and cool on my sunburnt cheeks. This is not mere soft-mindedness, nor am I all that silly with the altitude. My head has cleared in these weeks free of intrusions--mail, telephones, people and their needs--and I respond to things spontaneously, without defensive or self-conscious screens. Still, all this feeling is astonishing: not so long ago I could say truthfully that I had not shed a tear in twenty years.

The Snow Leopard
Peter Matthiessen

stubble

Wasn't too long ago that the corn was green and very tall in fields all over the state. Summer has turned to fall, and corn has turned to silage; corn stalks to stubble.

a day in the life

The Vermont Zen Center version of "ango," an intensification of practice, has started. Yesterday I worked at the Center, putting up No Hunting signs and mowing the lawn. At some point I heard the screeching of hawks high overhead. Four or five raptors were circling the grounds, that was a first. I figured this might be a part of the raptor migration and headed to Mt. Philo for lunch, and observing. On the way I saw another 10-20 hawks and eagles in the sky over Shelburne, think I saw a bald eagle! I thought I was really going to be in for a treat. When I got to Mt. Philo, however, whatever had been going on had petered out and died. It's all a great mystery to me.
We had our weekly meeting at the Center, getting out about 8:30. I went into town to get an evening snack. The stars were out. I had brought my binoculars along, hoping to get a closer look at some raptors. Got a good look at Mars, the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Double Cluster in Cassiopeia before bedding down for the night.
Dokusan (one-on-one meeting with the teacher) started at 6 AM. I got up at 5 to pack up the car as I had to leave early for a United Way meeting in Rutland. The sky was still clear. Hauled out the binoculars and got a good look at the Pleiades and the constellation Orion; Sirius blazing in the south. The drive home was beautiful. The sun was rising over the Green Mountains, peaking through clouds of yellow and gold. The maples glowed through the morning mist in the colors of autumn. There was a man taking a walk when I passed through Middlebury armed with a camera, and the joy of being in the right place at the right time. When I was just to the north of Brandon, the migrating geese began to rise out of the neighboring swamps, ponds, and rivers. As they rose, they began to organize their journey in ever-changing kaleidoscopic patterns; a blob becoming a circle becoming a line, becoming a V. There were over a hundred of them. There really aren't words to adequately describe the feeling that came out of witnessing that spectacle.
The United Way meeting started at 8. The day has just begun. I feel like a pretty lucky guy.

In his first summers, forsaking all his toys, my son would stand rapt for near an hour in his sandbox in the orchard as doves and redwings came and went on the warm wind, the leaves dancing, the clouds flying, birdsong and the sweet smell of privet and rose. The child was not observing; he was at rest in the very center of the universe, a part of things, unaware of endings and beginnings, still in unison with the primordial nature of creation, letting all light and phenomena pour through.

The Snow Leopard
Peter Matthiessen

Columbus Day

Columbus Day, Erin's favorite holiday/not. This is traditionally considered the peak of the foliage season. With the advent of global warming, however, it now occurs later in the year. It's been a strange season so far. Many of the trees are unusually green, but some of the maples are already past peak.
Fall foliage is one of nature's great mysteries. In some years the colors are vivid. On misty mornings the brightest colors seem to give off their own light. Some years the colors are dull. No one really knows why. This year it actually seems something of a mix. Trees in the back are muted, but I've seen some really beautiful ones.
I think it was last Columbus Day that I was down in Manchester doing some soliciting for the Hunger Banquet at the VZC. I walked past a couple speaking a language from the Orient; maybe Japanese or Chinese. People come from all over the world to bear witness to the beauty we see every year right in our own back yards.

At dusk, white egrets flapped across the sunken clouds, now black with rain; on earth, the dark had come. Then, four miles above those mud streets of the lowlands, at a point so high as to seem overhead, a luminous whiteness shown-- the light of snows. Glaciers loomed and vanished in the grays, and the sky parted, and the snow cone of Machhapuchare glistened like a spire of a higher kingdom.

The Snow Leopard
Peter Matthiessen

vivid

The Green Mountains are multicolored this time of year. Gray on top of orange on top of green as leaves turn and then fall off the trees all depending on the elevation. The vivid colors of autumn slowly unwrapping themselves.

Listen...
With faint dry sound
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost crisp'd, break free from the trees
And fall.
Adelaide Crapsy

autumn

October has arrived and the fall foliage season has finally started. It's been warmer than normal. We have yet to have a frost, and there isn't one on the horizon. Some of the earliest leaves to turn, and some of the most beautiful are those on trees in swamps and wet areas. Leaves on vines seem to turn sooner than leaves on trees, and are also very beautiful.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
Albert Camus

bonus

common vetch

A bonus from the hike on Snake Mountain, saw two wildflowers I'd never seen before. That doesn't happen much any more.

blue-stemmed goldenrod

birds

Outside on a cloudy Friday evening, heard the urgent call of geese heading south, the essence of wildness, even though I couldn't see them. Woke up on a sunny Saturday morning, wind from the northwest. Outside, two hawks circling and screeching in the blue skies overhead. Allyn and I hiked Snake Mountain, and I was hoping to see some raptors heading south. The conditions were favorable.
It was a great hike with an amazing view from the top of the Valley of Vermont, Lake Champlain, and the Adirondacks in the west. Unfortunately, didn't see much in the way of raptors--just one, and it actually seemed to be heading the wrong way. Saw the first flock of geese heading south, however. North winds expected on Wednesday. I'm going to keep looking.

"Audubon" Frederick says, "was an American, walked into swamps and woods for years, back when that whole country was just swamps and woods. He'd spend all day watching one individual bird. Then he'd shoot it and prop it up with wires and sticks and paint it. Probably knew more than any birder before or since. He'd eat most of the birds after he painted them. Can you imagine?" Frederick's voice trembles with ardency. Gazing up. "Those bright mists and your gun on your shoulders, and your eyes set firmly in your head?"

Werner tries to see what Frederick sees: a time before photography, before binoculars. And here was someone willing to tramp out into a wilderness brimming with the unknown and bring back paintings. A book not so much full of birds as full of evanescence, of blue-winged trumpeting mysteries.

All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr

thistle

I was driving through Shelburne yesterday and for the umpteenth time saw a plant along the roadside I didn't recognize.

I stopped to take a look. It was some kind of thistle. Looking through my wildflower book it appears to be Canada Thistle. Its leaves were turning. I've never noticed that before.

Another example of the beautiful within the ordinary. Again, for the umpteenth time. Next to the thistle I found some Butter and Eggs flowering. No, Doug, this is not another name for Birdsfoot Trefoil.

moon-viewing

Rainy and cold, temps. in the 40's. I'm having some wood stove issues so I'm late getting wood this year. In the mean time, I split some wood I had in the back yesterday (not this much, this is an old photo). Boy was I tired last night. Allyn had some new storm windows installed this summer. Already the house feels much warmer. Full moon, the "harvest" moon is tonight.

Tonight I have
no time for sleep
moon-viewing.
Basho

season of mushrooms

34 degrees this morning. Mist rising from rivers and ponds. Season of mushrooms.

Wood's Market

Driving Route 7 on Monday, I planned to stop in at Wood's Market in Brandon to get some fruit. They were closed. Wood's Market really embodies summer for many of us. Potted plants in the spring. Strawberries in June, they are the best. Sweet corn in August, and a full selection of tasty fruits and vegetables for the rest of the year. Geese fly south in the fall and Wood's Market closes for the season. Summer is over.

season

Season of mums.

Season of asters.

mysterious

Got home last night about 10:30. The sky was clear and the stars were out. Was able to see the Double Cluster and the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye. There is a hurricane to the far south, but it's another sunny day here in Vermont. Fog in the valleys this morning, autumn is coming.
Speaking of autumn, apples are ripening in my back yard and all through the northeast at this time. There are two apple trees in our yard, and as they fall they complicate mowing. Allyn dumped four buckets of apples from one of the trees in a nearby field the other day as she was preparing to mow. The cows love them. I asked her if any had fallen from the other tree. She said three or four. These trees are about 40 yards apart. One of the trees has a lot of apples and the other has virtually none. It's a mysterious and amazing world that we live in. 

purple

Camel's Hump

Purple mountain's majesty indeed.

berries and migration

Was in Shelburne over the weekend. Saturday was a sunny day with the wind blowing from the north.  Some of us hiked Mt. Philo hoping to see some raptors heading south for the winter. The wildflowers of May have turned into the berries of September, and we saw some on the way up.

Someone saw these along the trail. I didn't know what they were. A woman who grew on a farm in Vermont said they were the berries of jack-in-the pulpit.

Nobody knew what these were.

When we got to the top there were birders with binoculars, but we didn't see any raptors. One lady said she had seen over 100 during the day. We took the road out, and about halfway down, someone pointed out three large birds flying just above the treelike heading south. They were hawks! They few silently and purposefully. The urge to migrate must be very strong in these species as many travel literally thousands of miles every spring and fall. It is mysterious and compelling to observe this behavior in action.

transient

Yesterday felt like the Fourth of July in the north country. Had a great canoeing outing on Echo Lake with the old woodchuck, Doug Blodgett. It reminded me of the great canoe trip I took with John on the Allagash River in Maine at almost exactly the same time of year some years ago with John, the trip of a lifetime.

Drove through Wallingford on the way to Doug's house. Went by John and Ellen's old place there, the place we used to watch over Owen when he was born. Drove through Tinmouth on the way home. Things were hopping at the Tinmouth school, but Allyn wasn't there. She was enjoying her retirement at home. Cooler temperatures are expected today as we transition finally from summer to fall.

We long for permanence, but everything in the known universe--thoughts, weather, people, galaxies--is transient. That's a fact, but one we fight.
Sharon Salzburg

impermanence

Cooler temperatures although  bit steamy when mowing yesterday afternoon. I remember reading some years ago that the day was coming when the climate in Vermont would one day be like the climate in Virginia. It has felt more like Virginia than Vermont this summer. I remember an amazing fact that Kim presented at a lecture some months ago that when Washington crossed the Delaware during the revolution, the climate in New Jersey was what the climate now is in Quebec. Field corn is growing like crazy.

season of sunflowers

Across the road
from a field of sunflowers:
a sunflower
Bsssho

season of crickets

Was out mowing, and crickets were everywhere! They remind me of blackbirds, sleek and black, ordinary and beautiful. They are considered to be a sign of good luck in some Asian and Native American cultures. Some of them venture inside this time of year. Their chirping in the darkness is uplifting. Went outside last evening, and the sound of the crickets  and grasshoppers was almost deafening.

On a branch
floating downriver
a cricket, singing.
Issa 

stellafane

Went to Stellafane on Friday night. It is a longstanding event in Springfield,; Vermont that features homemade telescopes. During the evening, viewing is possible. Saw many of my old favorites along with some new things. I went with Allyn, my step-brother, and his wife. I feel that anyone who has any interest in the natural world should try star gazing at least once in their lives.

Season of hummingbirds

They love this garden by the patio.

elm

Elm trees have always been a beautiful part of the American landscape. In the last century, Dutch Elm Disease has wiped out most of them. Actually you still see a fair number of them around, but they are almost always young ones. Sooner or later the disease catches up with them. You see the bones of these trees all over Vermont. We have one in our back field.

There is an elm tree just off of Route 7 that I have observed for 30 years. It is an anomaly in that it is mature and still in good health. Is it resistant to the disease? Does its relative isolation protect it from the beetles which carry the disease? Certainly it is a miracle, and a beautiful one at that.

grace

common nightshade

When you're swinging on a swing, you go hard in one direction, and then there is a slight pause at the top before you start to head the other way. Climatically, we seem to be in that "pause" position right now. While the days are starting to get shorter, the natural world is basically still in summer mode. Birds have fledged so the nesting season is over, but the migration season is a ways away. I saw the mother bluebird teaching the babies how to forage for themselves the other day. Dragonflies are starting to gather in the back, but not yet in earnest. Teachers and children are still on summer break, but the teachers are starting to think about it. Things are kind of in a state of grace.

School has started in Brazil. All of the Kahle Jones family is heading off to school today. I wonder if Clarkie's school will ever be the same.