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