'Twas the day before...

In hopeful anticipation, I put some black sunflower seeds in a tray feeder to see if it might help attract red-winged blackbirds or scarlet tanagers or cardinals. It didn't take the gray and red squirrels long at all to discover the new food source. The tube feeder is fundamentally inaccessible to them. Squirrels slide off the baffle that protects the feeder perches. Although squirrels at bird feeders annoy me, they become pleasing playthings for the dogs when I open the deck door. Dogs dash out barking at a squirrel which dashes up the overhanging oak tree thinking "stupid dogs can't climb." The dogs, on the other hand, think "stupid squirrels never learn."

early April wood ducks

Photo by J. Harrington

Ice cover on the small pond up the road is starting to rot. Maybe this week there'll be open water for returning wood ducks. The lack of snow cover from this past Winter shows in lower water levels at most of the local wet spots. Starting at 5:28 am tomorrow, we can begin to look for Spring rain showers (or snow storms) to correct any of Winter's precipitation shortfalls, not that it's going to rain or snow early tomorrow, but that's when we enjoy Vernal Equinox for 2017 and meteorological and astronomical Spring will coincide until June 1.

Vernal Equinox

The circle turns once more
and we, the children of the elements
watch in wonder.
The stately dance of the planets
As Mother Earth sings her tune
of life, of death, of re-birth.
Day and night, now equal,
in this time of fire.
The sun kisses the earth
Fills her with a heat, deep, deep down
and she responds to his gentle caresses
by showing her bountiful,
lustful, beautiful face.
And by giving life to all things.
As he rides out, he grows in power
in the everturning of the wheel.
And slowly, o so slowly
the cosmic dance continues.
The Wheel of Life is in the fertile phase.

3/92

Penni Currie

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