wild geese

Sunny skies and temperatures in the fifties. As usual, I heard them before I saw them, wild geese, calling out to each other as they barreled homeward on brisk southern winds; the essence of wildness. Spring is the season of returning, as this blog now returns to an old favorite.

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

poor man's fertilizer

We had some more snow a few days ago, 5-6 inches. It doesn't last long this time of year. The old timers call it "poor man's fertilizer."

To learn to see, to learn to hear, you must do this--go into the wilderness alone
Don Jose Matsuwa
Zen page-a-day calendar 

bluebirds

The bluebirds have returned. Yesterday we saw them watching over the new house I put up for them recently. The old one had been infested with mice over the winter. Their arrival is kind of a mixed blessing. They are beautiful, and I love them, but I worry about them as they try to raise their families over the course of the summer. Yesterday they were guarding their new home from a half dozen goldfinches. They also have to contend with house wrens and sparrows which are particularly formidable. The sparrows will kill the bluebirds. We have been lucky the last few years as the sparrows have stayed away.
Bluebirds have come to the little house in the back for the last 10 years at least, probably more. They usually raise four babies at a time, and breed at least twice a year, sometimes three times. That amount to over 50 new bluebirds over that period of time. I feel good about that.

sugaring

Coming back from the store yesterday afternoon, and checked on the collection tank. The sap was running. Allyn and I brought some wood in last night. I already had my boots on so I headed down to Nathan Hewitt's sugarhouse for a look. Lights were on and steam was rising out of all the sugarhouses in the valley.

Nathan had a select board meeting earlier in the evening and was just firing up. His son was there as well as a couple of other helpers from the neighborhood.

Nathan said that when it starts to "sheet" on the stirring pan, then you know that it's about ready. They stick a float in a bucket of sap, and when the float rises to a certain level, then you are sure it's syrup. If you continue to boil, then the sugar concentration increases. You can make maple cream and maple sugar from this process.

Another onlooker, also named Jim, stopped by. We talked about the weather forecast and the birds. Someone had seen robins. I said I had seen bluebirds. Jim said they usually arrive in February. Someone had seen a red-winged blackbird. I said I had seen three. Nathan had seen some black ducks and mallards. Jim had seen some grouse in his yard.

This blog is about the ordinary; and about the miraculous. This entry contains a little bit of both as usual, but skews toward the miraculous as far as I'm concerned. If ever there was a food that qualifies as ambrosia, it is maple syrup. Ira, Vermont is a backwater in almost every way, but there are at least a half dozen small, family-run sugar houses within walking distance of where we live. I feel like a lucky guy here on the other side of the creek.

getting out

Was out digging one of my springtime ditches the other day and ran into Pete and his dog who were walking in the back. Had a brief, neighborly talk, mostly about astronomy. Walking on the crossroads, saw a couple of deer feeding in a field up near the top. Haven't seen that for awhile. Even saw a small band of turkeys tread gingerly out of the woods in the back and peck their way through a couple of the fields in the back. With warmer weather, we're all getting out a little bit more.

world

Cold, dark, and wet, but the birds are singing. Feels like the world is giving birth to itself.

Happy anniversary

March 21st, 2007
AM thermometer went past zero. Maybe for the last time this year? Snow mushy during the day, freezes at night. Little crystalline nuggets in the morning. John home from D.C. today. New moon with Venus above.

The above was the first entry into a journal I started 12 years ago today. That journal eventually evolved into the blog you are currently reading. The idea started during mud season with this notion of "seasons" and how conventional wisdom says that in Vermont there are five seasons as I mentioned the other day. I felt that there had to be more than five seasons and wanted to see how many I could find. It's changed my life.

Full moon, the "Worm" moon is tonight.

Spring

First day of Spring! Frantic call of a house wren from near the creek. Was out looking for skunk cabbage yesterday (now there's a sentence you don't read very often). Didn't find any in the usual places, still too cold. Driving away I saw three red-winged blackbirds flying into a swamp. Spied a bald eagle soaring over bare ground in Shelburne. Spring is officially here.

The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever! The faint silvery warbling heard over the partially bare and moist fields from the bluebird, the song sparrow, and the red-wing, as if the last flakes of winter tinkled as they fell! What at such a time are histories, chronologies, traditions, and all written revelations? The brooks sing carols and glees to the spring. The marsh hawk sailing low over the meadow is already seeking the first slimy life that awakes. The sinking sound of melting snow is heard in all dells, and the ice dissolves apace in the ponds. The grass flames up on the hillsides like  spring fire as if the earth went forth an inward heat to greet the returning sun; not  yellow but green is the color of its flame,--the symbol of perpetual youth, the summer checked indeed by the frost, but anon pushing on again, lifting its spear of last year's hay with the fresh life below. It grows as steadily as the rill oozes out of the ground. It is almost identical with that, for in the growing days of June, when the rills dry, the grass blades are their channels, and from year to year the herds drink at this perennial green stream, and the mower draws from it betimes their winter supply. So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity.
Spring
Walden
Henry David Thoreau

brook

Realizing this year how much spring is the season of water. The water in the Ira brook is at its clearest this time of year. It's like the rocks and gravel at the bottom of the stream have been scrubbed.

That spring long ago at Naniwa in Tsu:
Was it all just a dream?
Now only dead leaves on the tall reeds
rustle in the wind.
Saigyo
Zen page-a-day calendar

mud season

Vermonters say there are five seasons here: spring, summer, fall, winter, and mud season.

Followers of this blog know that there are many more than that, but mud season is certainly one of them.

One year we were driving this road, and a tire was literally sucked off the rim by the mud. Actually the roads are better than they used to be. This year is a particularly bad one, I think because of all of the ice and frost.

spring

Like I said the other day, temperatures today are supposed to be near 50, and tomorrow near 60. Walking out to the car this morning, I happened to glance at the small ditch I carved in the ice and snow yesterday.

As I said on this blog recently, this is the season for lessons in thermodynamics, I had forgotten that it is also the season for teachings in hydrology. You see, temperatures are usually around freezing this time of year; sometimes a little above, sometimes a little below. That means that snow and ice are often turning into water, and visa versa. Yesterday afternoon a pool of water had formed in the driveway. That brought two possibilities to mind. Cooler temperatures would cause that water to turn to ice, leading to something akin to a skating rink in the lane. If temperatures remained relatively warm, the water would turn the lane into a muddy quagmire, not unlike miso soup. Neither of these possibilities are pleasant ones either for us or for the driver for the town who plows our lane. Hence the ditchwork.

I have done plenty of "water work" here on the other side of the creek over the years. There have been two basic reasons for this. One is the aforementioned: to keep ice, water and snow out of the lane. The other is to keep as much water as possible out of the basement.

Last Saturday was a warmish day. In the evening, Allyn and I were heading to a party nearby. Crossing the bridge on Kahle road, the water on the bridge was about three inches high. It was forecasted that temperatures would cool that evening, and I could envision the skating rink that would ensue should I fail to intervene.

The party was a madhouse. I wouldn't be missed. I came back home and did the requisite digging to get the water off the bridge, and into the Ira creek.

There is another well known way in which water "springs" forth this time of year. The sugaring season has begun. Water in this sugary form is being sucked out of the ground by maple trees and into sap lines and buckets all over the state.

Even the word "Spring" brings another usage of the word to mind. A spring, a place where water is gushing out of the ground, seemingly without ceasing. I googled the word in order to learn about its origin. It comes from the Dutch and German word, "springen" which means, the head of a well, to rush out in a stream. Perfect.

Water will be the watchword here over the next couple of days. There are flood watches in effect here until Saturday evening. When temperatures are to cool, and water will revert to its icy wintry form... for a time.

Sometimes when I write these lengthy blogs I wonder. Does this mean that the natural world is wondrous and endlessly fascinating, or do I just lead an exceedingly boring life? Maybe it's a little of both. What's your opinion on the matter, Shawn?

In the air

Coming in from an early morning meeting. The sun is so bright. Spring is in the air. Yesterday I took a short walk through forests and fields. I saw a half dozen birds congregating under a fir tree on a south facing slope. They were robins. I couldn't initially make out their red breasts, but I could tell by the distinctive way they walk; scurry and stop, scurry and stop. It has been a long time since I've seen a robin.

The change in the weather has motivated me out of my wintertime torpor. Got up early to participate in an early morning exercise class on PBS. Went out to get the paper before it started. The sky was dark and clear. First thing I saw was the constellation Scorpius low in the southern sky. I looked around and spotted Cygnus, the Northern Cross. These are summer constellations! I haven't seen them in a long time. It will be months before they are available during the evening viewing hours, but there they were. Highs near 40 today, 50 tomorrow, and near 60 on Friday.

night sky

Coming home from the Zen Center the other night about 10. The sky was crystal clear. Went inside to turn out the outside lights and haul out the binoculars to have a look. The winter constellations Orion and the Pleiades were setting in the west. The spring constellation Leo was rising in the east. Got a good look at Gemini and the Beehive Cluster overhead.


Joe Brimacombe on Flickr

When you start to see the constellations and other night objects in relation to the seasons of the year, the universe becomes a part of your neighborhood; like the big blue house down the road or the sounds of the birds. The night sky is ever-changing and never changing, just like everything else.

magnolia

Buds swelling on the magnolia tree at the ZC. In May it will look like this.

Cabin fever part 1

Town meeting was last night. It was memorable mostly because the moderator, Mary Mitiguey, is a woman. We were remarking on the way home that that's got to be a first in the history or our town. She did a great job.

Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
Martin Luther King

I hope he's right.

Anyway, I was getting dressed this morning, getting ready to meet the day, and I saw a flash of orange/red in a maple tree across the creek. Could be a cardinal, I said to myself. I've seen a lot of those lately, but, could it be...a robin; the first of the year? I ran to the kitchen to get my binoculars. I didn't have anything to write about today. If it's a robin, that would make for great subject matter. I hope it doesn't fly away in the meantime.

When I got back to the bedroom, it was still there. I focused in on the redness and saw that it wasn't a robin, not even a cardinal. It was a reddish maple leaf left over from the fall. I scanned the entire tree, it's a big one, and couldn't find another leaf remaining. It was the only one. Temperatures in the teens and single numbers at night through the rest of the week, but moderating to more seasonable numbers for the weekend. It's about time.

thermodynamics

The annual course in thermodynamics is now being taught here on the other side of the creek. You don't need a book. All you need to do is look around. Light, shade, snow, dark objects, topography, manifest the properties of heat and cold better than any textbook.

The crystal day

Blue sky, fresh powder. crystals of ice and flakes of snow blowing in the air for most of the day; like scrapings of sunlight/stardust that somehow found their way to my back yard.

It was a great day to take a walk in the woods which is what I did.

Allyn went skiing.

It was beautiful snow and covered everything.

Mysterious tracks in the snow, maybe a rabbit?

There is an old road in the back that I cleared, mostly for Allyn, in the fall. At the time I thought that guaranteed a snowless winter. I was happy today that she was able to use it.

I saw her on her return trip. She said, "I can't stop." as she skied by.

Crows murmuring to themselves back by the vernal pool which is covered with ice and snow. Spring seems a long ways away.

The reflection of the sun off the snow was very warm on the return trip. I had to unzip my jacket. Wind blowing snow from tree branches. It slowly and softly fell to the earth like eiderdown.