bluebirds

 It's interesting to observe the changes in the world distilled into the activities taking place in my own back yard. When I'm eating breakfast and looking out the window, the first thing I see is the bluebird house.

Wintertime bluebird activity has changed over the years. Used to be said activity was nil. There weren't any bluebirds here in the winter. You might start to see some around the end of February as spring approached. A few years ago I remember Ellen mentioning that she saw them all year round during the winter that she lived here. Now I see them maybe once a week. and it's not just one or two, it's five or six, and they're hanging around the birdhouse in the morning for awhile, and then I don't see them again for days. I've learned that they look for dry cavities, like bluebird houses, in which they can roost during the winter months. I think that's what they're doing.

I came across a great article yesterday. The gist of it was that the range of eastern bluebirds is moving northward. That they are becoming more prevalent in places like Maine, and their numbers are dropping in places like the Mid-Atlantic states.

Here it is: https://maineaudubon.org/news/bluebirds-in-winter/

They attributed the change to a number of factors, but, surprisingly,  didn't mention climate change. I'm not a scientist, but I feel that is a major factor.

My neighbor is my age, and has lived in the area his whole life. He says that when he was a kid, you didn't see animals like great blue herons or opossums. It was too cold for them here. Now they are very common, like ticks. Unfortunately, as some animals appear in the area, others depart. I don't hear the wood thrush singing in the back the way I used to. The moose population is diminishing, and even the sugar maples are stressed by the warming conditions. It's sad to see.

 

 

 Another one taken at the same time. I'm thinking I either took these at Lake Placid or between Claremont NH and Windsor Vt.

alpenglow

Driving into town to pick up the truck at the mechanic's shop at sunset. Full moon, the "Cold" moon rising over the Green Mountains. Alpenglow shining off snow covered peaks.

Segue into the blue hour.

What color is snow anyway?

hydrology

 Days of rain and temperatures in the 50's turned our winter wonderland into this:

Was talking with my mechanic at his place the other day. The discussion turned to some work he had done last summer, grading his parking area so that water would run off, and not collect in a muddy mess near his garage. It's amazing how much training one acquires in hydrology when living in a place like this. And if you acquire an advanced degree in hydrology over the years, you also need to minor in subjects like: roof rake, generator, sand, salt, wood stove, and sump pump. 

A few years ago, after Hurricane Irene, Vermont governor Peter Shumlin was talking with New Jersey governor Chris Christie. Shumlin asked Christie how it was going, and he said cleanup was progressing very slowly. Christie asked how things were moving in Vermont. Shumlin said cleanup was very brisk. He said that was  because half of the Vermont population owned a pickup truck and a chain saw.

Merry Christmas!

I am going to notice the lights of the earth, the sun and the moon and the stars, the lights of our candles as we march, the lights with which spring teases us, the light that is already present.

Anne Lamott

Page a day calendar on gratitude

I wonder

 Coming back from early morning grocery shopping, the planet Venus shining brightly in the southeast. Retracing my steps when returning from the ash pile, noticed the blue color of the snow at the bottom of the tracks I had made. I remember seeing this before.

 Why is that? Science IQ.com says, "Generally, snow and ice present us with a uniformly white face. This is because most all of the visible light striking the snow or ice surface is reflected back without any particular preference for a single color within the visible spectrum. As this light travels into the snow or ice, the ice grains scatter a large amount of light. If the light is to travel over any distance, it must survive many such scattering events, that is it must keep scattering and not be absorbed.

The observer sees the light coming back from the rear surface layers after it has been scattered or bounced off other snow grains only a few times and it still appears white. However, the absorption is preferential. More red light is absorbed compared to blue... Typical examples are poking a hole in the snow and looking down into the hole to see blue light or the blue color...

In simplest terms, think of the ice or snow layer as a filter. If it is only a centimeter thick, all the light makes it through, but if it is a meter thick, mostly blue light makes it through."

Oh.

Never lose a holy curiosity

Albert Einstein

Page a day calendar on gratitude

snow

 Light snow this morning. Yesterday was the winter solstice. Winter has officially begun. Yesterday I took a bucket full of ash from the wood stove, and dumped it in the usual area in the  back about 50 yards from the house. The snow is still very deep, and it took me a surprisingly long time to walk to that spot. I couldn't help but think about the deer and the other animals and how difficult it must be for many of them at this time. 

For other beings, the deep snow is welcome.

Fortunately, for the deer anyway, temperatures are supposed to moderate, and the snow pack will diminish.

 

A meadow mouse, startled by my approach, darts damply across the skunk track. Why is he abroad in daylight? Probably because he feels grieved about the thaw. Today his maze of secret tunnels, laboriously chewed through the matted grass under the snow, are tunnels no more, but only paths exposed to public view and ridicule. Indeed the thawing sun has mocked the basic premises of the microtine economic system!

The mouse is a sober citizen who knows that grass grows in order that mice may store it as underground haystacks, and that snow falls in order that mice may build subways from stack to stack: supply, demand, and transport all neatly organized. To the mouse, snow means freedom from want and fear.

A rough-legged hawk comes sailing over the meadow ahead. Now he stops, hovers like a kingfisher, and then drops like a feathered bomb into the marsh. He does not rise again, so I am sure he has caught, and is now eating, some worried mouse-engineer who could not wait until night to inspect the damage to his well-ordered world.

The rough-leg has no opinion why grass grows, but he is well aware that snow melts in order that hawks may again catch mice. He came down out of the Arctic in the hope of thaws, for to him a thaw means freedom from want and fear. 

January

A Sand County Almanac

Aldo Leopold

The days after

 The deep snow pack and clear skies make cold morning temperatures, 14 below the other morning.Single flakes of snow floating around in the air, reflecting the sunlight like diamond dust. I wish I could have gotten a good photo of it.

Raking the snow off the roof. During this process caught sight of a hawk, high in the blue sky overhead.

 

Large dogs and small children playing in the snow.

 

  Spotted the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn one evening. Be sure to take a look at it over the next few nights.

Sky and Telescope

l'heure bleu

 A snow covered landscape along with clear skies combine to produce an amazing scene before dawn and after sunset. 

 The French call this l'heure bleu, the blue hour. 

buried

 We have lived here on the other side of the creek for 40 years. Last night when I went to bed the forecast called for 2-5 inches of snow. We woke up to this.

That is a car. I can only remember one other time when the overnight forecast called for inches and we ended up with feet. I couldn't open the doors this morning to shovel, too much snow. I had to climb up into the attic and exit out the garage door. 

The temperature was in the teens this morning so fortunately the snow is very light and fluffy. Allyn is very excited. She is making Christmas cookies now and planning to go out skiing in the afternoon.

plow

 Rumble of the town plow on Kahle Road for the first time of the season. The snow plow becomes central to our lives in the winter much in the same way that the wood stove does. We are the only house on this road, and the plow bisects our property and turns around in our lane. It seems that the driver changes almost every year, and they negotiate the job with varying levels of skill. In the spring we often have a lot of landscaping to do as we try to put the patches of sod back in the appropriate places and remove the piles of gravel from the lawn. The last couple of years I have put up markers along the sides of the lane to help guide the drivers. Last year it worked out pretty well.

decorations

 Holiday decorations appearing in town.

And inside

Some decorations are elegant, most of them are kind of tacky.

 It really doesn't matter. They help preserve the past by bringing them into the present.

 

mother of pearl

 Back from sesshin. Steel cut oats and coffee, and the clanking and sighing of the wood stove. Crunch of snow underfoot when heading out to get the paper. Crows in the sky overhead also making their morning rounds. Sun on snow, clouds and sky.

Blues and greens, yellows and oranges, all embedded in whiteness; like mother of pearl.

Happy Birthday Pip!

 Happy Birthday to a wonderful daughter, wife and mother!

season of shadows

 Yesterday I took a rare drive on a rare sunny day. At one point I noticed long shadows of trees extending from one side of the road to the other. It looked like it was about an hour before sunset when it was actually about one o'clock in the afternoon. I couldn't believe it. I turned around and noticed the sun hanging very low in the sky in the southwest. If it was summer time, it would have indeed been about an hour before sunset. It just brought home to me how short and dark the days are this time of year, even on a sunny day. It's not much comfort but in a couple of weeks the days will start to get longer again.

warm to cold

 The change of seasons is not subtle in Vermont. That's what makes it possible to write a blog like this. Most of the changes noted refer to the natural world, but the changing seasons are also reflected in the human world and its activities. When you stop to think about them, there are quite a few, some stark, some subtle.

As the days and weeks change from warm to cold, the winter clothes come down from the attic, and the summer clothes head up. As the patio furniture heads to the attic, the wood rack comes down as the comforting warmth of the wood stove becomes central to our lives.

Cotton sheets on the bed give way to flannel sheets. Winter tires go on, summer tires come off. In my car the ice scraper comes out of the back seat and finds a more accessible spot in the front. In the summer, one parks in the shade, in the winter in the sun, facing south. When I first moved here, I learned to park my car such that I could get at the battery with jumper cables during the winter. In the summer, I park it any old way.

not so long ago

 I'm paraphrasing here, but Picasso was once asked why he had so many paintings of the same bowl of fruit. He responded by saying that it was never the same bowl of fruit.

For months now, Allyn and I have been taking the "same" walk around the block except it's never the same walk. Recently I walked past this common nightshade that has put on its Holiday decorations. 

 

I remember when these berries were the flowers of summer, not so long ago.