An early taste of the upcoming restless season

Yesterday afternoon -- early evening, a whitetail doe helped herself to a green salad from the nominal wet spot behind the house. This morning, as the rain was thinking about getting organized, a whitetail doe and her two fawns wandered, zoomied and scampered through the yard on their way to somewhere else. Mom was being characteristically cautious and each of the fawns, characteristically, could stand still only for so long and then had to dash somewhere and, sometimes, back.

yesterday’s visitor to the “wet spot"

Photo by J. Harrington

A bit later this morning, the flock of four or five turkey hens came out of the woods heading southerly. No poults with them. As this is written, the girls have returned, headed northerly. I’d be happier if they had some poults along. Did the wet spring have a really negative effect on the local flocks?

Anyhow, here in the North Country we often go weeks on end seeing not much of anything but the songbirds at the feeder. Then, for a day or two it’s like the back yard is Grand Central Station for local wildlife.

We finally got around to heading out to pick up this week’s Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share. It includes:

• BASIL
• CABBAGE
• CUCUMBERS
• GARLIC
• GREEN ONIONS
• GREEN PEPPER
• KALE and
• SUMMER SQUASH

While we then headed to the credit union and book store, we noticed a flock of geese flying over one of the farm fields and sandhill crane pairs or so in several of the fields we passed. Folks are warming up and filling up in anticipation of the upcoming migration season. We’ll stick around and keep an eye on the place for them.

Deer Descending

By Philip Terman

Perhaps she came down for the apples,

or was flushed out by the saws powering

the far woods, or was simply lost,

or was crossing one open space for another.

She was a figure approaching, a presence

outside a kitchen window, framed

by the leafless apple trees, the stiff blueberry bushes,

the after-harvest corn, the just-before-rain sky,

a shape only narrow bones could hold,

turning its full face upward, head tilted to one side, as if to speak.

I want my life back.

Morning settles around her like a silver coat.

Rustling branches, hooves in flight.

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