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.