Prelude to Vernal Equinox

Once again the ice is starting to open on the Sunrise River pools near Highway 36 in the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area. Today there were two pairs of swans where earlier this week there had been only one. Soon we can expect many more, plus ducks, geese and gallinules and sandhill cranes.

Squirrels are chasing each other up, down, and around the trees surrounding the house. Most of the snow has melted from much of the ground under those trees. More so where the sunlight shines directly on the ground than where it’s shaded.

red squirrel on oak branch

Photo by J. Harrington

The almost full moon has been beautiful as it sets in the western sky while I drink my second cup of coffee. Full moon occurs Saturday, but you knew that, right?

It feels like a pensive, expectant, waiting time, full of anticipation of warmer, hopefully sometimes wetter, days ahead. Meanwhile, we’re on a roller coaster ride with temperatures exceeding 50℉ today, for, I believe, the 14th time this winter, and tomorrow barely getting above freezing, with the possibility of 60 on next Monday followed by a below freezing high on Wednesday. I have no idea how any plants could evolve to survive such rapid freeze-thaw cycles. No doubt we’ll be waiting awhile for bud burst. You can check the status of Spring here. Soon we’ll be able to enjoy the thing itself here in the North Country.

Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself

Wallace Stevens
1879 – 1955

At the earliest ending of winter, 
In March, a scrawny cry from outside 
Seemed like a sound in his mind. 

He knew that he heard it, 
A bird's cry at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six, 
No longer a battered panache above snow . . . 
It would have been outside. 

It was not from the vast ventriloquism 
Of sleep's faded papier mâché . . .
The sun was coming from outside. 

That scrawny cry—it was 
A chorister whose c preceded the choir. 
It was part of the colossal sun, 

Surrounded by its choral rings, 
Still far away. It was like 
A new knowledge of reality.

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