Wednesday, April 13, 2022

It’s ice out time in our neighborhood

Sometime during the past few days, local lakes have reached ice out; if we consider ice out to mean 80% or 90% of the lake is open water. Last night’s storms have left many ditches full of water and some local streams running bank full. Now all we need is sunshine and warmth for spring to burst out all over. Maybe next week, or the one after it?

I don’t remember the last time we saw as much thunder and lightning as we did last night. SiSi gets anxiety attacks when it thunders, so we spent lots of time reassuring her that she’d be okay if she just settled down near us. It sort of worked but we’re both pretty sleepy today.

Sunrise River marshes: sandhill cranes
Sunrise River marshes: sandhill cranes
Photo by J. Harrington

Earlier, watching sandhill cranes flying agains a cloudfilled sky made us think of Klingon war birds or pterodactyls. Their haunting calls seemed to echo off the cloud bottoms. This is not how we usually think of spring weather, but that probably means the issue isn’t the weather but our expectations. At least we’re not living on Hoth, the ice planet, for the next six or seven months, although having a nice warm house remains high on the list of things for which we’re grateful. With all the dreary, depressing news these days, it would be wonderful if the weather provided an antidote. Soon?


The Sandhills



The language of cranes
we once were told
is the wind. The wind
is their method,
their current, the translated story
of life they write across the sky.
Millions of years
they have blown here
on ancestral longing,
their wings of wide arrival,
necks long, legs stretched out
above strands of earth
where they arrive
with the shine of water,
stories, interminable
language of exchanges
descended from the sky
and then they stand,
earth made only of crane
from bank to bank of the river
as far as you can see
the ancient story made new.


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