chickadees

Eleven below zero when I went out to start the Honda this morning. Heard the two note call of the male chickadee for the first time this year. The Cornell lab of Ornithology says that, "the males begin singing in mid-January, and the songs increase in frequency as winter progresses.

powder

While we didn't get as much snow as predicted, we still ended up with about six inches. Because of the cold, the snow was as fluffy as any I can remember. Shoveling the driveway was like shoveling air. It was very windy afterwards with much blowing and drifting, snow flying over the tops of guard rails like ocean spray over the top of a sea wall during a big storm.

Eliza

Another generation on the other side of the creek.

Milky Way

Here's the Milky Way Farm in Ira, Vermont around 5:45 AM. Speaking of the Milky Way, saw the constellation Scorpius rising up above the Taconics in the east on this walk. Scorpius is a summer constellation. It was nice to see it!

this

Sometimes nothing need be said.

Venus

Driving home the other night, and saw a bright light along the western horizon. It was the planet Venus, unmistakable. Venus has been a morning star, and while I've seen it, it hasn't happened often. Then it became invisible, lost in the glare of the sun. It had finally returned as the evening star, and I was happy to see it. Like the return of an old friend.

everywhere at home

I received a trail camera for my birthday. On Saturday John helped me put it up back in the woods. I hear there are bobcats back there, and I'd love to get photographic evidence of that. A friend at work gave me a feathered lure that he said would attract them. Yesterday morning about 5:45 I headed up the hill to put it up. It was still dark, Jupiter leading the constellation Leo westward through the morning sky, ice crunching underfoot. I got lost in the woods, but eventually made it to the camera, and put up the lure. I stopped for a moment to see if I could hear anything. Nothing. The silence was deafening, just like it was at times on the Allagash. There's the feeling of being smothered, covered by a wooly blanket of silence. The sun was coming up over the Green Mountains as I headed back down the hill towards home.
Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and night overtake thee, everywhere at home.
Walden
Henry David Thoreau