Easing into January #phenology

Part of our efforts this year to make nature a bigger part of our lives is the addition of a Leopold Phenology Calendar, which we finally remembered to hang up this morning. It tells us that this is the month that great horned owls are laying and incubating eggs and that today is the day that northern cardinals begin their spring song. Since Baraboo,WI is about 165 miles to our south and fifty or so miles to our east, we can assume that events in our neck of the woods will occur about ten days to two weeks later. [Check Hopkins’ Law)

barred owl perched north of the house

Photo by J. Harrington

We’ve encountered few, if any, great horned owls but do enjoy an occasional visit by a barred owl, like the one that stopped by at the end of January last year. They begin nesting in a couple of months. With all the squirrels we have in our woods, I’m surprised we don’t have a nesting pair living nearby year round.

Our Yule season is close to over. The removal of decorations has begun with the disposal of last year’s Christmas cards. This weekend the tree will come down. At least one of us is hoping for and looking forward to a real January thaw. We’ll see if we get lucky this year. If foregoing a January thaw means no polar vortex, we’ll grumble but take it.

This morning I visited the Granddaughter to share with her one of the books Santa’s elves left for me. She seemed pleased by the drawing of a fox on the cover of Gail Boss’ All Creation Waits and collected her  own soft, fuzzy fox doll from her toy pile. I read a little and she listened a little and then she  bent forward and gave me a soft, fuzzy hug. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been hugged by  a not quite 1 1/2 year old. I’d almost forgotten how wonderful they are. Twenty-twentytwo is looking better by the day.

Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard

by Mary Oliver

His beak could open a bottle,
and his eyes - when he lifts their soft lids -
go on reading something
just beyond your shoulder -
Blake, maybe,
or the Book of Revelation.

Never mind that he eats only
the black-smocked crickets,
and the dragonflies if they happen
to be out late over the ponds, and of course
the occasional festal mouse.
Never mind that he is only a memo
from the offices of fear -

it’s not size but surge that tells us
when we’re in touch with something real,
and when I hear him in the orchard
fluttering
down the little aliminum
ladder of his scream -
when I see his wings open, like two black ferns, 

a flurry of palpitations
as cold as sleet
rackets across the marshlands
of my heart
like a wild spring day.

Somewhere in the universe,
in the gallery of important things,
the babyish owl, ruffled and rakish,
sits on its pedestal.
Dear, dark dapple of plush!
A message, reads the label,
from that mysterious conglomerate:
Oblivion and Co.
The hooked head stares
from its house of dark, feathery lace.
It could be a valentine. 

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Please be kind to each other while you can.