Landscape

Being outside feeling the pre-storm mountain barometric pressure lushness of the last budding of spring as the final trees unfurl their leaves and the shade garden is covered with intoxicatingly fragrant lily of the valley.

almost Spring

today I saw the crocuses but I think they bloomed yesterday. And I heard the peepers for the first time though others heard them the day before.

The Earth is soft, not squishy but ready.

The warm gentleness of these new days just after daylight savings is a gift. I think it might get cool again for a bit and I am sure that we will have weird and perhaps terrible weather this season, but I am looking forward to spring.

It’s odd sometimes how the equinoxes seem the least balanced because there is such an aliveness of activity. And yet the action of sun rising or setting is somehow held for a moment timeless.

Winds howl

Fierce winds swirl around the house and come up under my feet in this old room of wide plank floors basically on the earth. It is finally cold and the second day that snow has been on the ground all season.

Sorting out direction amid the wyrrd socio-economic politics of the world beyond my grasp, causes internal discordance that even strong winds cannot clear.

Woke before dawn and lay in bed longing for peace and solace. Should have just gotten up and made coffee and a fire. Now, though it is still early, the sun is already moving high and mocking my loss of the day.

One thing at a time is so hard

.

Open the door

Today is Winter. Cold and white and quiet. And yesterday was Spring, soft and warm with birds singing.

Today we fought touching cords that shattered hearts. Must be the Imbolc season of breaking.

Today I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what we have built up or broken down with words and silence. Only that there are tears, and that beneath the snow the water flows.

Today birds flock in the branches around the Bridget shrine. They fly almost cheerily there and yet are no where else about.

Today the trees silently drop piles of snow like oversized flakes and the stream gurgles loud.

weather

The hurricane came after the earthquake which was a few days after the hailstorm and violent rain. The winds were scary, even more than those of November or February. I was up most of the night visioning a protective cocoon around the house. We had no idea of the damage all around us, just trying to keep the house dry and the kids entertained and calm. We were quite fortunate.

This week has been beautiful summer – blue skies warm but not hot, though today is muggy.Thunderstorms might come and another hurricane or flooding.

People are weary, we are exhausted, the cat has left. Wish things were normal again, though, like the riverbanks, normal may never be the same.

Summer is moving on

the season is in full swing. Weeks of no rain and a week of almost 100 degree weather and days and nights of watering the garden. Finally a day of cool rain.
Tomatoes are ripening, sunflowers have just bloomed, lilies are done, weeds are everywhere.
Berries and more berries and yet it feels like the summer is slipping by.
Something in the air reminds me that autumn is coming.

the bird freed from the woodstove

Once upon a time they lived as always in this fine house.

There was a sound, loud like a spirit, from the room and then clearly from the woodstove, empty in the heat of Summer.

It seemed to be a mouse, then thought to be a bat and the large net was gathered to trap it for release.

All but one left the room.

The animal turned out to be a small bird, obviously traumatized from its attempt to escape back up the creosote coated flue.

Held for a while outdoors, gently preened it flew away leaving a small feather.

the end.