Winter Bees Return

27Nov09

The wild white bees of winter have returned.  Snow is not falling, but snowflakes are scurrying bee-like in the air.  Above freezing, they dissolve into dampness.

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Being There

24Nov09

Our house is the last on the street before it starts downhill toward the West Fork River.  The ground slopes away all around the back, so we look down on the roofs on the next street.  Our grown children, raised on the flat in Texas, arriving at night when they first saw it, said “You [...]

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A Previous Lack of Crows

22Nov09

When we were in Texas, I missed the crows.  Cawing in the distance had always seemed as integral to early morning as the dawn, until it was gone. I was pleased to hear one occasionally, especially early morning on our camping trips. I thought it was just that they didn’t come in to town.  But [...]

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Black Lace

17Nov09

The crows are molting.  Sailing overhead, their wings are like black lace against the blue sky.

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Small Things

31Mar09

This morning’s air was full of the barely visible.  Clouds of infinitesimal gnats hovered above the lawn.  Puzzling threads of rainbow drifted past, shimmering in the early sun.  At last I saw the tiny spiders hanging at the end of each one.

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Juncos

20Mar09

Today was cool, but bright and sunny.  The yard was full of juncos, the first we’ve seen. In my childhood they were winter birds at the feeder with the titmice and chickadees.  The first daffodils are blooming, down over the hill in the far corner of the yard.  I think I spotted the groundhog, and [...]

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Garden Treasures

06Mar09

Thursday was 60° and sunny, after a low of 8° Tuesday.  With rain predicted for Friday, it seemed like a good day to abandon the library walls and work in the yard.  Raking leaves and pulling up what would seem to be acres of English ivy, if the lot weren’t only half an acre, I [...]

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Red Squirrels

04Feb09

When we first moved in, we noticed what seemed to us to be chipmunks in the line of Norway spruce and hemlocks along the back of our yard.  In Austin, we were at the western edge of many species, including the fox squirrel, which has a black variety common on the Texas Capitol lawn.  Our [...]

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Sweet Gums and Bluebirds

04Feb09

Sunday was warm and sunny (well, for January in north central West Virginia) and so we took a walk around the trail in Veterans Park, down the hill and across the river from our house.  Most of the path was free of ice and snow.  There was a fine paper-wasp nest on a sycamore branch [...]

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Snow

27Jan09

Perhaps in a few years I will tire of the snow, but I don’t think so.  After 23 years in Austin, Texas, where a dusting occurred every decade or so, prompting the neighborhood to stand in the streets staring, I am ready for four seasons again, including lots of snow.
I love the look of the [...]

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