Blankets & Seats

recieved a gift from my friend and mother-in-law today: seats made from our 'grandfather pine' that fell in the snow storm last april. he was the companion pine to our grandmother pine, falling a year before her. i like that part of him will be staying with us, and in such a useful way. they are very simple: batting, covered by upholstery cloth that is tacked down onto the wood. they're the perfect height to sit comfortably, and they make our house more the kind of house i want it to be.


dusk sit. boy wrapped again in the sling and his nana's blanket, sleeping soundly. dog decided to sit by me almost the whole time. he grew chilly during the sit, shivering. cool night.

focused on listening and seeing during my sit tonight. doves cooed and whistled their wings a couple of times in a tree behind me. a couple of diminutive birds flew from the pine in the center of our yard to our apple. the smoke rose steadily and lustily from the pile of burnt branches. the cars went by. the dog snuffed about, and the grass he trod on sprang back up. the grass, grown thicker and bedecked in dandelions, gil-over-the-ground, and bluets since yesterday's rain, was pleasingly scraggly, like a horse's winter coat. peaceful sit.

before we got up to bring the dog to warm in the house, a peeper called out from our now-full frog pond. others immediately chimed in, as though they all had been sitting in readiness, wanting to chirp, but without quite enough confidence to start. how we keep our passions silent, when we may be surrounded by a chorus.

tonight i am having one of those times when i feel as though things are rather pointless. i'm living my life, going on, earning some money, paying bills, getting up in the morning and going to bed at night, interacting with my husband and our son, just going on and on. i have been in this place emotionally in the past, and a common thread is that in this state, i lack appreciation for what i have. it feels as though my life will go on exactly like this for eternity, so i have nothing to pay attention to or to be thankful for. i don't know what gets me into this state. but i do believe that prayer, giving thanks for and attending to all of the things and people around me, will nudge me back into awareness......my dog just threw up on the rug, reminding me of his near-attack of pancreatitis this weekend (he managed to eat a third of a stick of butter out of a grocery bag, and i managed to get him to throw most of it up). i'm now alert.

Smoke

rain today, so they burned the trees. all day, great plumes of smoke rose from the pile, enveloping both of the houses to our south throughout the day, but the wind kept it from ours. flames only appeared now and then. it burned in sections, and was never the mound of flames i had envisioned.

night sit.

rain. dark. put the boy in his sling and covered him with the blanket my mother made for him, resting it over his head like a hood, tucked down under his feet, all around him. intended to go to my sit spot, but strolled over to the brush pile on the way and stayed there. came as close as we could to the fire without stepping into the mud of the new road. the boy gazed at the smoke and the flames, transfixed, silent, for almost fifteen minutes.

it was so rich, standing there in the dark and the wind and the rain, hearing the pelt of raindrops on the earth, on the ribbon-edge of his blanket, the fire echoing the sound in its crackle, the smoke billowing out, forming infinite patterns as the wind caught and played with it, twisting and turning, making it rise and then spill down upon the living trees near it. sometimes is would turn back upon itself, then dissipate into clear darkness. dark pile of broken branches and roots, dark trees beyond, glowing orange flames, smoke, gray and white, dancing around it all.

from where we stood, i could only see one small area in flame. another burned on the far side of the pile; when the smoke danced down around it, it silhouetted the outline of the pile so that i could see how the branches protruded from the top, how the pile itself appeared woven of branches. it came to me suddenly that the burning brush pile was a sweat lodge: the area in flame was the low, arched entry. the smoke rising up, swirling around it, dancing up to the sky, was the prayers. the small flames that flickered here and there were the songs swelling from inside. the sparks rising were the laughter of the women, the joy and glee of the sacred space. i talked to my son about it, told him of the sacredness of the fire, the smoke, how they teach us.

Rivers

dusk sit alone.

cool, cloudy day. rain in evening.

several tiny waterfalls of rain fell from my pine, dripping from the low points of branches. i put my hand up to the trunk, and the water running down it was diverted into my sleeve, along my arm, my chest. it just kept pouring in, a river of cold rain under my clothing, like an underground stream running silently in the darkness.

the grass was that dusky-pale green it gets in a spring rain, drunk on water and covered in tiny droplets.

the needles of the pine clung to each other in the rain, the five-needled groups bound together, thick needles themselves, tree shaggy like a wet dog.

sound of rain crackling down on last year's blackberry stalks, spring peepers calling from a distance, robin shouting, doves - grandmother pine's doves? - cooing from a tree.

tomorrow they will burn the branches from our trees, piled so high. i've learned that the pine smoke isn't dangerous to us, just bad for chimneys because the creosote builds up. the woman at poison control center said that the oil burner in our basement is more dangerous to us than the burn will be, the fumes we breath every day more toxic.

Company

company this weekend, didn't set time aside to sit or write.

evening walk through the land tonight. haven't taken the time to sink into all of my senses in a while. thinking back over my past writings, i can see how it affects the quality of my observations.

still air, very moist, cool.

grass is growing long and green. walking out back tonight, the grass swishing under my feet, i was reminded of the sound horses make as they graze, the distinct and satisfying tear.

many birds singing tonight in the remaining trees.

as i was going outside tonight, a purple finch was perched in the top of the apple bough on our porch, singing and twittering away, happy as a clam. i've never heard a purple finch sing before. they used to visit our birdfeeder for a few minutes at a time, then retreat to the trees to sing.

my husband and i have recognized that because we have to look harder to see the birds at our feeder now, hidden as they are in the boughs on our porch, our eyes will probably be more able to pick them out in trees as we walk in the forest.

Branches

day sit.

a strong wind came through from the north.

the excavators arrived today. they tore the stumps out of the ground, pushed the topsoil into piles, mounded the branches up into an even higher pile that apparently will be burned next week, when it rains. none of us have ever heard of such a massive bonfire. i plan to be away with the little one during those days, to protect him from pine's toxic smoke.

walked about the land today, saw that amidst all the disturbed soil and roots, there remains, uncannily, a little island of green grass, where the daffodils i planted two years ago are standing.

we pulled some of the pruned branches from our apple up to our porch, along with two little saplings that were cut down, and began the process of fixing them to the corners for the birds to perch in when they come to our feeders, which now hang in the apple boughs. after we'd gotten two up, we went in the house to see how it looked, and watched the wind move through the branches. it was eerie; the branches, so fresh, moved just like living trees in the wind.

the pruned apple bough has buds on it. how long will they grow?

i was delighted to see little red squirrel visiting our porch today. i wonder when we will see our three-legged gray.

it was freeing to have all the destruction done, and to finally be able to start moving forward and healing all of us from it. like putting the branches up for the birds, a little space for them, new.

Stumps

afternoon sit.

the excavator came today and dug up most of the stumps of our trees. he also made piles of the remaining small branches along our yard. the land looks grotesque, mangled limbs with gauges in it and strips of bark peeled back, all heaped in messy mounds where before a forest stood. as he started to work down by the street, i pulled out some of the grandmother pine's branches to use for a debris hut later this summer. my husband and i also pulled out of the mess some saplings we'll attach to our porch, for the finches and chickadees to perch in when they come to our house for food.

the loss of the trees has offered the wind a playground, and the new, lusty presence of the wind here, combined with the windows being open today, helped me to hold, for a moment, an overhead image in my mind of the movements of air in our area. the cool little enclaves holding still down by the river, the warm areas of wind in motion over our yard, the hot little pockets within each of our rooms, with only the windows offering entrance and exit for the stuffy air.

more daffodils are out, and tonight there is a chirring frog chorus coming in through our open windows. only one or two peepers calling now.

last night, i saw somebody flittering about in the twilight and went outside, vainly hoping to hear the peeping of the woodcock's wings, but it was just a bat out for food.

we have had three swallows disputing control over our nesting box this year; i believe it's a pair versus one on its own - a male hoping to gain courtship offerings?

More Trees

morning sit.

woke up to the saws this morning. watched from our bedroom window as the birch that holds the bohemian and cedar waxwings every spring fell to the ground. went out with the boy and gave tobacco to the few trees remaining to be cut beside our house, thanking them for giving up their lives and their places on the earth so that our brother and sister can make their home and road. sat at my sit spot with the little boy and watched.

the pine that the fox slept under was already down, and the tall, dead pine that little red squirrel perched his apple on, eating it now and then on that low branch, was already down. i watched as they made their way towards our grandmother pine, the great big one who gave me an owl pellet when i first moved here and showed me that there is wildness all around. the one that the doves sleep in. the one that holds wildness about her, with trees and bushes growing all around her, the most inaccessible place in our yard for humans, so one of the most valuable places for the birds. they cut away, with quick, efficient swipes of the chainsaw, her lower, dead branches - the ones that make it so difficult to get up close to her trunk to touch her. they sawed off a thin trunk on one side. then the man spent some time working away at her trunk - the saw just buzzed and buzzed, and i knew he was sawing through her middle. his partner, working the machine that drags the trees away, came over after a few minutes, angled the tractor straight toward her trunk, and drove into her. her whole body, all of her massive trunks pointing up to the sky, all of her lovely branches open wide toward the sun - the ones that i wrote about back when i was first starting to sit, the explosion of life that they seemed to be - all of her just tipped slowly to the side, falling, falling, until she landed on the earth. the moment she fell, the man drove the tractor, chains rattling and struggling, up her trunks and onto the top of her. i couldn't see what he was accomplishing - perhaps cracking her trunks apart with the weight of the tractor - but it seemed such an insult, this beast of a machine to be scrambling up onto her body, with not even a moment of respect.

they continued on down toward the road, taking down saplings, tall pines, everything, everything. they cut down the little apple down by the road, and last was the pine with the chickadees' favorite branches for seed-cracking, the one that held our bird feeders.

the lumber truck made three runs today, stacked high with the bare bodies of the trees. on the second run, the trunks were all brown but for the long white trunk of the waxwings' birch, piled on the side closest to us. this is where our lumber comes from. this is how the wood for our hardwood floors, the studs in our walls, the casings around our windows was treated. we live in a shelter built of this cruelty, this disrespect. like prine: "they tortured the timber and stripped all the land. they dug for their coal 'till the land was forsaken, then they wrote it all down as 'the progress of man.'" we cry for the trees, but then we build houses of them, buy lumber without a second thought. i look at the little maple table beside me - how many trees are in it? how many birds perched in those trees? how many little plants depended on the ecosystem under those trees? how many squirrels included them in their arboreal highways? how many deer peered past them in the forest?

the land looks like a wasteland. so much character torn away. so many stories and histories obliterated. generations of plants and creatures who've found their homes on this land, destroyed or sent elsewhere, to make room for a road and a house.

it makes me reflect on natives watching the rainforests getting destroyed, people watching hopelessly as the basis of their cultures and livelihoods, the land they love, is altered forever. i know that people on the earth have lost far more than i did yesterday and today. i've only lived on this land for two and a half years, and my people are not from this land. how do people survive when it's their ancestral lands that are destroyed? how do native people continue on as their prayer grounds are desecrated, their people's gravesites looted or plowed under by developments? how do people in iraq, tibet, afghanistan keep going when their cultures and societies - the most fundamental things in life - are threatened? how do humans survive such horrors?

we planted a peach tree today with our son's placenta beneath it, a little prayer and thanksgiving to the earth. and yesterday i put our new little cherry tree in the ground, just three feet tall.

our first daffodils bloomed today, and the forsythia is in flower.

tonight, the peepers and other frogs call in neighbors' yards, asserting their place, their continuation on this land.

Trees

dusk sit.

the woodcutters came today and began their work. most of the individual trees that i know and love are still standing near our house, but much of the forest out back has been felled. looking west from my sit spot, i see jumbles of branches on the ground, a roiling ocean of miscellaneous limbs, disembodied and lying on the earth. the mystery and dark of the forest transformed into open sky, emptiness.

a row of trees marks the beginning of the neighbor's spared forest.

the straight trunks that the woodcutters found in the bodies of the trees have been piled in the next yard over. neatly stacked, freed of branches, needles, leaves, freed of bird nests, shadows. the pileated holes are the only thing marking the anonymous faces of our friends, lumber, to be stacked on trucks and brought to the mill.

Land

family visiting this weekend, no sit yesterday.

brief sit at dusk tonight.

grass is greening, fanning out in different shades all over our fields. daffodils are getting ready to burst. yarrow, silla are rising up, whispering themselves quietly into the day.

as i sat, the songs of robins and peepers traveled across the land.

during our visit this weekend, we talked of food being trucked over thousands of miles before getting to us, and of family gardens and local farms, of growing our food near our homes. i felt keenly tonight the separation we have from this land we live on: the chocolate i had today - distributed from new mexico, cheese made somewhere in new england, the food that sustains us grown on ground we'll never set foot on. felt the separation of this land from my family, living a long drive from this place; my work miles away from my garden.

it made me want to sink my roots down into the ground, live on this land like it's where i'll live my life out. i intend to move with my family to a homestead deeper in unsettled land when we can afford it, but i want to settle here completely while i'm here. if i'm going to walk on this land at all, i want to honor it by walking on it with my full feet.

Hiding

day sit.

struggled to be aware while i was outdoors today; i kept pulling away from the present moment and drifting off into random plans, memories. it seemed my mind would grasp at anything to keep from being present. haven't figured out yet what i was hiding from. consequently, not many observations to journal about.

ground is still a little moist to the touch, but only wet in the very low areas.

now, at night, i hear that the spring peepers have finally found the little pond in our yard.

Forsythia & 'oles

dusk sit.

forsythia is pushing out tiny yellow spears.

spent much of the day outside with the boy, letting the sun sink into our skin. he sat bare-bottomed and bare-footed on the grass, kicking and looking around and chortling. then, laying on his back, the movement of the branches in the breeze caught his eye, and they were gathered in to his collection of interests. the birds called.

cleared the leaf mulch from the strawberry beds, weeded the rest of the gil-over-the-ground from two beds and planted peas and mustard greens in them. broke and removed the stalks of yarrow, oregano, echinacea from the perennial bed in the garden, and pulled up the borage stalks from beneath last year's pole beans.

pansies, strawberries, yarrow, and garlic are the only current livelies in the garden. i remember, from memories of pictures, how full and green the garden grows by late summer. now it is flat and brown, just tiny hints of green here and there. moles or voles ('oles?) were industrious in the garden over the winter, building tunnels all throughout the beds. the multitude of worms and grubs below the mulch tell of their meals.

visited our sit pine as the sun set. the light played on an old branch hanging low where we stood. it was like a story of the old days: brown, dry, stable.

great blue heron flew home over us at dusk.

Tricolor

day sit.

very mild winter breeze in the summer sun.

the world today is colored entirely in shades of blue, green, and brown.

Dusk sounds

dusk sit.

robins, spring peepers, and two other kinds of frogs were all chanting their separate choruses tonight, together in the twilight. air was moving slowly over the land, carrying a chill with it. we are expected to be in the upper 60s by friday.

swallows are repopulating the air. little red squirrel made an appearance today, along with our usual sparrows, under the feeders. two crocuses are in bloom in the front garden - our first flowers of the year, not counting the forsythia i brought inside a couple of weeks ago. autumn glory, yarrow, and chives all have a couple of inches of growth under the mulch already, and garlic is poking up above the straw we laid over it last fall.

the "greening of the earth" is happening.

Hawk

day sit.

on my way out the door, foxwalking, i was suprised when our goldfinches all flew towards me in a flock; the only direction i've ever seen them all flee in is away from the house, towards the trees. a moment later, i saw their reason: a very small crow-like bird, swooping right after them. the bird was silhouetted against the sun and i couldn't see any markings. faster than i could track, they switched positions so that the little birds were after the big; it was more like they were escorting it than chasing it, with some around it as well as behind it. they all did a few swirls toward the south, and then the bird continued on empty-handed and the finches retired to the trees. i ran in and got the binoculars after the most exciting part of the chase was over, but they didn't offer any more details than my first view had.

i looked up hawks, they being the only predatory bird i know of near that size, and discovered that there are a couple of small, crow-sized hawks, namely the broad-winged and sharp-shinned. it was quite chunky, so i'm betting on the broad-winged.

went out back to look at the turkey foot again, and was again impressed by its size. the three front toes are as long as my index, middle, and ring fingers; this is partly what gives it such the appearance of a hand. the claws are about half an inch long.

sunny today, chilly breeze. the earth is greening, and coupled with the blue sky, it was almost too much color to bear so early in the year.

Swallows!

afternoon sit.

cloudy day with some breaks of bright sun. very chilly when the wind blew.

first swallows of the year arrived in a large flock last night. a cluster came today to swoop here and there after insects above our yard. such a welcome sight, their petite swallow silhouettes against the evening sky. will wait to see if a pair returns again this year to one of our nest boxes.

today brought the discovery of one of the feet of the turkey that was eaten in our yard a few weeks back. i was looking at the piece of a wing that the dog found last week, and saw the foot lying a few feet away, still on the snow. a foot is so much more personal than feathers on a bone, it's like holding the hand of the creature. it was just beautiful. large pink and gray scales all along the lower part of the leg, flat and perfect like a snake's belly. the bottom of the foot was covered in long, skinny, tiny beige bumps, like the back of a starfish. the claws were just like dog claws, and were long but dulled.

the foot naturally curled closed, but in pushing the three front toes open, a living version of a turkey track jumped out. it had an impressive spike on the lower leg, short and deadly-looking like a rooster's. the upper leg bone was pretty well cleaned off, but the foot hadn't been touched. it didn't seem to have much to it besides scaly skin, bone, and tendon.

thanked the turkey for letting me learn more about its body.

saw my first two wooly-bear caterpillars of the year. so much life everywhere.

Spring Peepers

dusk sit on the porch.

boy quiet in a sling, quiet and taking it all in, for twenty minutes.

flocks of birds flying high overhead, north to south. too far to recognize, though i brought binoculars out to try.

hail this morning. sky was dark, then darker. a roar swelled quite suddenly outside, and our house was inundated with a wave of small hailstones. we watched them bounce off the forsythia branches.

last night was the first spring peeper night of the year, choruses off in the neighbors' backyards.

yard is a quilt of beige, dark green, vibrant light green, and sky reflected in puddles.

Friday, April 11

noontime sit under the pine.

soft, dry ground to sit on. pine needle scent, soft green needles lifting and falling in the gentle breeze. robins and others singing their songs. boy looking, looking, looking silently, then wanting to nurse.

the grass and leaf piles look as flat as paper on the ground, having been pressed down so firmly by the snow. the perennial beds i mulched last fall show no mounds of plants beneath the brown leaves; everything is flattened.

the snow is only in patches here and there in the sunny parts of the yard, but it is still almost up to my knee in the deciduous forest out back.

saw a flash of a small reddish somebody fleeing through the back yard as a lumber truck pulled up next door. thought it might be the fox, but when i went out to look for tracks in the slushy snow, i found none. possibly a squirrel and an untrained eye, or else a clever fox who diligently steps only where all of the snow has melted.

such a quiet day, but for occasional cars & neighbors' voices. at the risk of sounding idealistic, it let me imagine a world in which all that there really is to hear on a spring day is the birds, the breezes, the silence between them. in which we walk across the land as we please - no roads, no narrow property lines. just oneself, one's people, and the land.

the only places i've come close to this feeling of cohesiveness is at parks and nature preserves, where everything is made to be available to all of us for sharing. but even there, i often develop a sense of "my" picnic or camping spot, to be defended against others wanting to settle.

Thursday, April 10

afternoon sit under the pine.

today felt like late spring: hot in the sun, chilly in the shade. the boy had his first sunbath, complete with an outdoor pee.

exquisite day. sun tickling the pine branches in clusters. looking up at it was an experience in sun and shade, greens and browns. scent of the needles was almost overpowering, shouting out to the world. juncos peeped their way into and out of the branches as we sat, and the boy sang his squeaky chuckle in response.

the earth is beginning to sort out its wets and its dries: a little stream trickles over the land, dry earth around it. daffodils are four inches green, tulips coming along behind. the garden is completely clear of snow now, the first time in months.

woodcocks twittering to us this evening again. seem to be invisible birds at times - i hear them directly overhead, but all i see is dark blue twilight sky, then they move on.

Wednesday, April 9

day sit with the boy and the dog. (seems to be routine now that we do the sits together, so let's just assume they're with me during my sits from now on, and i'll note if they're not.)

glorious day, sun everywhere, blue sky everywhere, warmth in the air, earth uncovering, streams running over the land and carrying the snow underground. more and more mole/vole tunnels appearing. the hollows of their tunnels have shown up, joining their mounds of excavated soil.

the vegetable garden is awakening, the garlic poking its head up, the raspberry canes emerging from the snow.

the whole world seemed to be bustling with mechanical human activity today. much of my sensing was inundated with these doings; my eyes saw the lull being worked next door and the cars and trucks going by, my nose smelled the diesel from various machines, my ears heard trucks, the lull, table saws. i couldn't hear any birds because of the ruckus, and my brain was so concerned with the human activities that i didn't see any, either. i tuned in to the movement of the breeze moving the branches only when i wanted the boy to see them moving - it triggered me to watch them myself.

realized today that the building of the house behind ours will not only disrupt the animals' lives and our privacy, but also my ability to sense the natural world, since it will undoubtedly generate as much noise at times as the next-door lull and saws did today.

Tuesday, April 8

twilight sit with the boy and the dog on the porch.

woodcocks twittering in their circles, robins "deent"ing in their trees. snow is in fast retreat, giving way to the muddy, grassy flats of our back yard.

glorious day, blue skies as far as the eye could see, warm sun, cool breeze.

our tree frog pond has arrived along with the melting snow; it exists in the shallow cavity in the ground that once held an above-ground pool. the stars were beginning to reflect in it as i sat, amongst last year's cattail stalks. the moon is just a sliver, sinking after the sun.

Monday, April 7

brief night sit on the porch with the boy and the dog.

crisp evening, bright stars, gentle breeze, boy under a blanket with a hat.

today the town approved the plans for the house that will be built behind ours; the changes will be starting soon.

our yard has finally reached the halfway point: only half of it remains covered in snow now! it remains deepest in the forest, amongst the bare deciduous trees. it has melted under all the evergreens and on much of the meadow, especially where the melted snow flows and where the ground slopes toward the south. tulips and daffodils have begun to push up above the ground, along with some daylilies.

looking at the stretch of trees that are planned to be cut down for the road, standing tall and dark against the dark sky with the stars above them, it came to me to make a stamp of them for letterboxing, to keep their story alive. (see letterboxing.org and atlasquest.com if you're interested)

Sunday, April 6

afternoon sit with the boy and the dog.

cold, raw day. cloudy, little breeze. haven't seen many birds at the feeders today, but heard chickadees, crows, doves while outside.

stood a little ways from the pine for today's sit. on the crest of a little rise, the yard and our neighbor's yards looked quite different to me; the new perspective showed me the land as simply land, not as the separate yards that i usually see when i look around. suddenly, i could see the whole picture of the land: the way it all descends generally in one direction, little soggy plateaus here and there, the open areas formed by mown areas, driveways, the road, and the forested areas left to grow tall.

the rodents' winter tunnels are all being exposed by the melting snow: long, winding mounds of mud running over the earth. some end at small holes descending into the ground, some simply lie there, like an impressively long dog poop.

one of the surveyors' tags moved slightly in the breeze as i was standing near it. i moved to it to look closely at it, thinking i saw some kind of mark on it. it has very faint images of the state of texas all over it.

Saturday, April 5

night sit on the porch.

surveyers were here again today, preparing the land behind our house for the new house that will be built soon. i've decided to leave my sit spot pine to the woodcocks for now; they will be facing enough disruption in their lives with the building, they don't need it from my presence, too.

quiet night, but for the sound of water trickling over the earth and people going by in cars.

did my body scan and then the sense meditation. these two exercises simply transport me from one universe into another, from the world of my thoughts that only exists inside my head to the actual world around me - the night, the cold, the wintry smell, the lay of the land, the grass and pooled water and snow. i find, too, that when i tune in to my sight, hearing, touch, and smell, and then hold them all at once, that my sense of connection to the world - the sense of my actual physical connection to things - feels like it expands to include everything i am sensing, and i develop an intuitive sense, a sense of the energy of them. these ropes of sensing extend to the forest further from me, since i can hear things happening in it, and to the land upwind from me, because i can smell scents coming from there.

Friday, April 4

night sit on the porch with the boy and the dog.

dark, rainy, breezy, chilly. felt like ocean wind tonight, cold and wet. been preparing food all night, organizing the house, radio on, lights on, stuff. went outside, and the night was restful, calm, quiet. the only sound was cars, dripping rain, and breeze.

deerwoman from the kamana forum suggested american woodcock as my bird from the other night. i look it up on the cornell site tonight - bingo! it also explains the "beezping" "frogs" i've been hearing at dusk and wondering about...

Thursday, April 3

day sit with the boy and the dog. breezy. warm sun, cool shade.

on the way to the sit spot, my dog found the spot where the fox had eaten the turkey a little while back, now that the snow has melted and uncovered the remaining feathers. there was a large portion of a wing remaining intact, which he sampled until i reminded him of his pancreatitis.

under the pine, the air was rich with the full scent of pine, a deeper and rounder smell than on earlier sunny days. the snow in the backyard, shaded by trees in the afternoon, is still over my knee, as my successful postholing revealed, but it's only about eight inches in the sunnier parts of the yard. it continues to pull away from the base of the trees, leaving wide brown carpets below them.

today was one of those days when the weather tugs at you to be outside. the bright, abundant sun, the breeze that made me want to remove my jacket rather than pull it tightly closed, all of the birds chanting, the awareness that seeds are sprouting and will soon appear above ground. the need to get out felt instinctive, it came from such depths, and i felt frantic when i was in for too long.

the boy, the dog, and i spent the afternoon out, looking at and talking about the trees, the sky, the earth, the birds, shadow and sun.

Wednesday, April 2

evening sit with the boy.

blue twilight, chilly wind. before our sit, we were walking outside at dusk and heard a chipping/peeping sound above us. i looked up and watched a creature flying through the air slowly in large circles, its wings beating rapidly. looked about the size of a robin. from what i could make out in the dim light, it didn't have a prominent tail. pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew, very rapidly, like a dove's wings, only continuous.

flushed one of these creatures out again from behind my pine at the sit spot tonight; it had been roosting down low, if not on the ground. whipporwill? do bats ever venture down to the earth?

everything was enlivened tonight amidst the roaring of the wind. the trees were vibrant, dancing. the sky was maxfield parrish blues. the earth was rich, dark. the snow glowed dark gray.

Tuesday, April 1

April! April! April!

day sit with the boy and the dog.

the bare spots below the trees are joining now, creating long carpets of soft earth to walk on, skirting the snow. very warm out, up to 60, with a light breeze. everything is soggy and brown.

the trees are resounding with the songs of robins, chickadees, jays, goldfinches. today saw the arrival of juncos, tree swallows, nuthatches, purple finches, and my first sighting of house finches - so brilliant crimson! (peterson's doesn't do them justice.) male goldfinches are coming into bloom, and robins cover the ground and fill the air and the treetops.