Sound of the Veery

Sound of the veery on our morning walk. Doug's favorite bird call. Not as nice as the sound of the wood thrush, but nice.

https://youtu.be/vtJ14MV64WY

Paul Reeves

Buttercups strutting their stuff on the back lawn. A living exclamation point.

Lily of the Valley blossoming here on the other side of the creek for the first time. Thanks, Kathy.

crack

It is almost shocking to look out the back window these mornings as the sun rises over the Green Mountains; white clouds, blue skies, and everything else a vibrant shade of green.

Ira, Vermont from the Day farm

It reminds me of the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy's house falls out of the sky, and Dorothy carefully opens the door and looks out on to the land of Oz for the first time. Everything appeared so lush and green, literally vibrating with life.

Yesterday I drove out to pick up some groceries. The temperature was over 90, and there were some ominous grey clouds overhead. Suddenly there was a crack and the rumble of thunder. I was struck dumb (ha ha, Shawn, very funny). For a moment all thoughts and judgements of the past and future fell away. All that existed was that rumble, the here and the now.

                                         

How long has it been since that sound, the sound of summer, had been heard here? It reminded me of the moment when I had sleepily looked out the window in the middle of the night, and had seen the planet Venus blazing away in the western sky. Both ordinary, both miraculous. Two sides of the same coin. These are among the lessons I've learned over the years, writing about the seasons of life here on the other side of the creek.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein

interesting

Temperature up to 90 today. Sound of motorcycles on Rte. 133.

Sound of the red eyed vireo early this morning. They can make up to 10,000 calls a day.

Fiddleheads and Jack in the Pulpit appearing. They're not wildflowers, but they're interesting.

forget-me-nots

Yesterday on our morning walk we passed a field full of, um, uh, oh yeah, forget-me-nots.

There was a white flower in among the forget-me-nots, and I stopped to take a look. They had the same shape and number of petals as the forget-me-nots. They had the same number of leaves. They were forget-me-nots; just a white variety.

I had never seen that before. There are many flowering trees and plants that have a colored and a white variety: lilacs, crabapples, fringed polygala, trillium, violets.

I must lead a very boring life because for me this was pretty interesting and exciting.

The world is full of wonderful things you haven't seen yet. Don't ever give up on the chance of seeing them.
J.K. Rowling
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Happy Memorial Day

Lilacs emerging around Memorial Day like they always do.

Fringed polygala, I've only seen this wildflower once. Thanks Mitra!

Photo of a pretty yellow flower from Montana sent by my brother Bill. He's pretty sure it's not a dandelion.

Are these not enough?

Do we really need much more than this? To honor the dawn. To visit a garden. To talk to a friend. To contemplate a cloud. To cherish a meal. To bow our heads before the mystery of the day. Are these not enough?

Kent Newborn

Page-a-day calendar on Gratitude

warm season

Temperature of 72 degrees yesterday. Supposed to be 75 today. The cold season is fading away, turning to the warm season. Yesterday on our walk we saw two black snakes sunning themselves on the road.

Opening the windows during the day as it's warmer outside than inside.

Shorts and teeshirts instead of pants and long sleeve shirts.

Winter tires replaced by summer tires.

Golf instead of skiing.

Cold drinks instead of hot tea.

Patio furniture down from the attic. Wood rack goes up in the attic.

And one of Doug's favorites, ice scraper from the front seat to the back seat in the car.

season of woodpeckers

Walking the crossroads the other day, crazy laugh of a pileated woodpecker from deep in the woods.

It is the season of woodpeckers. They are living the line from Mary Oliver's poem, Wild Geese, "over and over announcing your place in the family of things." They are trying to establish their territory, and looking for the loudest instruments possible to accomplish this. Sometimes they will bang away on a metal sign. That makes a lot of noise. One woodpecker I heard the other day seemed to be rapping on the side of an abandoned shack which seemed to act like one huge wooden bullhorn. It really amplified the sound

bad plants

In the same way (from a relative/arbitrary point of view) that there are good and bad birds, there are good and bad plants. I usually just mention the good plants, but the bad plants are appearing; poison parsnip, bishops weed, garlic mustard. No photos of these plants, they are bad, all invasive species along with the multifloral rose, barberry, asian olive, japanese knotweed, and others. Here on the other side of the creek, we've already lost the battle with the bishops weed. There's too much of it. Fortunately we don't have too much of the poison parsnip. Currently I'm battling with the garlic mustard. It's gotten a toe hold here, but with a little work, I think I can keep it under control. Last week, I filled up two big construction bags with the stuff. I thought I was mostly done, but today when I went out to the mailbox I saw a pretty big patch along a fence line down by the creek. I'll be all over that patch before long. As I was making my way through a patch of brush along the stream bank the other day, I discovered two things. One was that there was a woodchuck den amid the pucker brush. It's pretty close to the house, but I didn't know it was there. Allyn did. Secondly there was quite a bit of garlic mustard around the den, and the woodchucks were eating the tops off the plants. I guess we're both trying to get rid of it in some fashion.

On a more elevated note, the redstarts are returning. They are a beautiful bird but somehow I always forget about them until they show up. It appears that a pair of redstarts are nesting in a lilac bush right next to the garage.

from All about Birds

living exclamation point

When I started this, whatever-it-is, some 14 years ago, I set up some arbitrary ground rules. One of them was that while I could mention the same phenomena from year to year, I wouldn't comment on them during the same season.  I wouldn't mention that I'd seen geese heading north two times during the spring of 2020 for example. I think I have always followed that rule until today.

I was moved by the photo of the early saxifrage that I posted yesterday. It took me awhile to figure out what it was that was so compelling. The photo seemed to project an assertiveness, a vivid "aliveness." It looked to me, almost literally, like a living explanation point. Here I am, look at me, I am alive, very alive! Many beings in the natural world embody this same quality, especially, it seems, this time of year. The fox in the back forest shouts out this message as she hunts for food for her young. The songbirds belt out this message as they seek to establish their territory. Listen to me, pay attention, I am here, I am alive!

As I was walking around outside this  morning, I looked around to see if there was anything in the natural world that wasn't projecting this same message, and I couldn't find anything like that. Dandelions, tulips, robins, everything seemed to be in some fashion singing this same tune. Their world is an uncertain one. They need to be paying attention, focused every second. Their lives depend on it.

I have to say that there are many moments during the day when I am not in tune with what is going on all around me. I'm going through the motions, daydreaming, unengaged. The saxifrage and all its friends have provided an important lesson to me. I hope I can do better.

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
Henry Miller
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warmer

Temperatures moving into the 60's (uh, that means it's getting warmer here). The Village Snack Bar is open.

Some social distancing I guess. Don't think I'll be going there. In West Rutland I saw two women strolling through town eating soft serve cones. They were admiring the big magnolia tree there. The magnolia at the Zen Center is also in bloom.

Saw a wildflower yesterday I hadn't seen in a long time.

Early Saxifrage

Isn't it beautiful!

stretch

Wildflower season in full bloom, no pun intended.

marsh marigold

cut leaf tooth wort

This last one is a plant called blue cohosh. It is listed in my Wildflowers of Vermont book. The "flower" is virtually the same color as the leaves. Can you see it in this photo? Me neither. This doesn't happen very often, but I have to agree with Shawn on this one. Calling this a wildflower is a bit of a stretch.

Owen and Ellen

Eliza is not my only grandchild interested in the natural world. My grandson Owen and his mother Ellen

 went out to a pond near where they live and came back with quite a list. They saw a flicker, a muskrat, white trillium

may apple

and a huge snapping turtle

Mother's Day weekend

Spring

spring beauty

Winter

Breakfast

Dinner

chocolate cake from Roots restaurant

shadbush

Hey Weezie, the shadbush trees are blooming!

blazing

Some weeks ago I woke up in what seemed like the middle of the night and made one of my usual visits into the bathroom. I happened to glance out the window, and saw a planet, high in the sky, blazing with light. It was a stirring experience, jarring actually, to be half asleep, and to be in the middle of a something very ordinary, and suddenly be in the midst of something extraordinary. I thought it must be Jupiter for two reasons; it was very dark, and it was high in the sky. It was extremely bright which would point to Venus, but Venus, because of its proximity to the Sun, is usually seen at dawn or dusk.

see it?

I checked an astronomical web site the next day, and it was not Jupiter that I had seen, but Venus. The site said that Venus was, indeed, unusually bright at this time. It was said to be at its 'greatest illuminated extent" and was "dazzling" to behold. It sure was. This was due to a combination of its relative "fullness" and its distance from the sun. It is said that the Buddha came to enlightenment when, after a period of intense meditation, he glanced up into the morning sky and saw the planet Venus. It is not difficult to imagine that something like that could happen.

The full moon, the "flower" moon is tonight.

green

It is so green right now. They don't call this the Green Mountain State for nothing.

Seasons are short here. It was not long ago that the grass was brown. There is a short period of time (now) when the lawn we mow is roughly the same length as the surrounding field. The lawn looks like it goes on forever.

There's a fox who passes through the back field almost every day on his hunting expeditions. We see him often with a dead animal, heading back to his den somewhere in the woods. As the grass in the field continues to grow, it conceals his activity. We will see less of him even though he is still there.

The grass will get higher and higher until mid-summer when the cows arrive and cut it back to about where it is right now.

emerging

Trillium emerging; everything in threes, leaves, petals, everything.

Flowers on the Trout Lily also starting to blossom.

oxymoron?

Ok, that's enough about the birds for awhile.

The spring ephemeral wildflower season has started. These wildflowers emerge on forest floors before the trees leaf out. It's a short season. Lungwort discovered along Rte. 133 yesterday. It's  the biggest patch I've ever seen.

Round leaf yellow violet seen on the trail heading to the vernal pool.

Yellow violet...is that an oxymoron?

the birds

Back around Christmas, Erin and her family took a trip to Rio, and then spent some time in a section of the Atlantic Rainforest nearby. They were given a brochure that indicated the bird species that could be found in that area, and Eliza immediately became interested.

Along with her other activities, she spent a lot of time trying to identify the bird species living there.

When we visited visited there in February and March, we also spent some time looking for bird species around Brasilia, and on trips we took into the neighboring countryside. Now she has her own field guide of the birds of Brazil. When she got it, I immediately thought about my father's old field guide which we still have here. He was a great birder, too. They would have had a great time together.

Why is it that birds are so fascinating? Some of them are beautiful.

Some of them bring us joy through their songs like the Wood Trush and the Veery. Some, like the Red Eyed Vireo sing out their song over 10,000 times a day! They are energetic, buoyant, and don't forget; they can fly!

Lady in a box: 

Oh, Mr. Webb? Mr. Webb, is there any culture or love of beauty in Grover's Corners?

Mr. Webb:

Well, ma'am, there aint much-not in the sense you mean. Come to think of it, there's some girls that play the piano at High School Commencement, but they aint happy about it. No, ma'am, there isn't much culture; but maybe this is the place to tell you that we've got a lot of pleasures of a kind here: we like the sun comin' up over the mountain in the morning, and we all notice a good deal about the birds. We pay a lot of attention to them. And we watch the change of seasons, yes, everybody knows about them. But those things-you're right, ma'am-there aint much.-Robinson Crusoe and the Bible; and Handel's "Largo," we all know that; and Whistler's "Mother"- those are just about as far as we go.

Our Town

Thornton Wilder