lilies of the field

Trillium

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither to they spin.

And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Matthew 6:28-29

swallows

 Richard Carter on flickr

Temps in the mid 70's. Rolling up my long sleeve shirt at work. Women in shorts at College of St. Joseph. Allyn bringing the summer clothes down from the attic. The swallows have returned in the back yard. I wish I could glide and soar through life the way they do.

top down

Hepatica

Willows starting to bud out. Vintage cars seen on Route 7; cars that spent the winter in the garage. People cleaning brush and leaves from their yards in Proctor. Convertible with the top down on Dorr Drive.

sky dance

Kim/Doug/John, what is this?

Thunderstorms at the Zen Center. Opening windows in car, home, and office. Snack bar open in Center Rutland. Young man in a tee shirt washing his car in his driveway. Viewing the annual sky dance of the woodcock along the cross roads in Ira

eggs

Back from sesshin. Temps in the 60's. Was out hiking in the back looking for Round-leaf Yellow Violets to check off of my wildflower list (no luck). Came across the place where the Chambers' had gotten their tractor stuck in the muck when brush hogging last year. There were two deep grooves in the mud. The grooves were filled with water, and the water had some gelatinous clusters of eggs, either salamander or frogs eggs. I read in the Rutland Herald that, pound for pound, there are more animals in the woods that have emerged from vernal pools than everything else combined. Later in the day I saw a salamander, and a frog dart away in another pond.

coltsfoot

Coltsfoot. You're welcome Shawn

Your humble scribe from the other side of the creek will be away from the computer for a little over a week.

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

astronomical fuss

Markarian's Chain in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster

zAmbOni on flickr

The other night was clear, and Pete and I decided to take a crack at the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. It is a veritable snarl of galaxies, galaxies, in the constellation Virgo. Some of the galaxies are Messier objects, some are not. I've no doubt that many an innocent Messier aspirant has ventured into the cluster, never to be heard from again. The evening quickly evolved into a situation where I was driving (manning the telescope), and Pete was riding shotgun, navigating the star chart.

"See the three stars?"

"Yep."

"Take a hard right. Field of view entering from the three o'clock direction."

We made good progress. After finding about three M items, Pete said those were the only ones he'd ever seen there before. Any others we found would be new for him as well as me. We ended up finding all of them. There are about a dozen. Pete said that completed his journey through the Messier catalogue which consists of 110 celestial sights. He started his search when he was seven years old, out viewing the night sky with his father. It turned into a solemn and momentous  occasion. When I left, Pete was plugging away on the Herschel objects. There are about 400 of those.

We are meeting up with John & Ellen in Buffalo in May. John has asked me to bring along my telescope. He appears to be interested in finding out what all the astronomical fuss is about. I am happy to oblige.