All Mother Nature's tints are natural #phenology

The trees are showing catkins, bud burst and the beginning of leafout. Even some of the oaks on the property are now developing some bud-swell. Spring is slowly softening the views of the countryside and returning colors to the neighborhood. The picture below was taken on May 4 five years ago. Clearly, this isn't the first Spring when we've been slow to experience leafout. It's probably us, more than Mother Nature, that's off-kilter. It was a lonnngg Winter.

the colors of woods in early May

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we noticed a small hawk, smaller than a red-tailed, flying among from tree to tree near the back corner of the property. No clear id nor photo. Was it here to try to feed on the birds at our feeders? We never noticed it near the house and the finches and chickadees etc. stayed active and oblivious. We also got a visit last night from a whitetail or two, checking to see if we had left a sunflower seed feeder within reach. There were tracks all over the soft dirt in the front yard. The dirt keeps getting softened by the tunnels of moles, or voles or whatever. Country living is almost always interesting if not always a joy.

Elsewhere, one nearby corn stubble field held a foraging sandhill crane in all its rust-colored glory. Another had a wild turkey skulking through. We'll be curious to see if either of these fields get planted this year.

The Sunrise River appears to have dropped to the point that it's barely within its banks. That's some kind of progress. This Spring has definitely been colder and wetter than what passes for "normal" during the "Spring" season in our North country. The warmer, drier, and more leafed out it gets, the more we're enjoying traveling around and seeing what's what and who's where.

Colors passing through us

By Marge Piercy

Purple as tulips in May, mauve

into lush velvet, purple

as the stain blackberries leave

on the lips, on the hands,

the purple of ripe grapes

sunlit and warm as flesh.

Every day I will give you a color,

like a new flower in a bud vase

on your desk. Every day

I will paint you, as women

color each other with henna

on hands and on feet.

Red as henna, as cinnamon,

as coals after the fire is banked,

the cardinal in the feeder,

the roses tumbling on the arbor

their weight bending the wood

the red of the syrup I make from petals.

Orange as the perfumed fruit

hanging their globes on the glossy tree,

orange as pumpkins in the field,

orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs

who come to eat it, orange as my

cat running lithe through the high grass.

Yellow as a goat’s wise and wicked eyes,

yellow as a hill of daffodils,

yellow as dandelions by the highway,

yellow as butter and egg yolks,

yellow as a school bus stopping you,

yellow as a slicker in a downpour.

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing

song of all the things you make

me think of, here is oblique

praise for the height and depth

of you and the width too.

Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.

Green as mint jelly, green

as a frog on a lily pad twanging,

the green of cos lettuce upright

about to bolt into opulent towers,

green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear

glass, green as wine bottles.

Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,

bachelors’ buttons. Blue as Roquefort,

blue as Saga. Blue as still water.

Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.

Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring

azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop.

Cobalt as the midnight sky

when day has gone without a trace

and we lie in each other’s arms

eyes shut and fingers open

and all the colors of the world

pass through our bodies like strings of fire.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.