6:04 a.m. 54 degrees, wind E 0 mph. Sky: moon, slightly less than full, leans west, supervisors the awakening; morning begins cloudless, an inkling of peach brushed across the center; clouds slowly germinate, wispy at first, then grade into shape-changing balls, ovals, patches, and a small windrow that collectively drift north; a few merges; a kaleidoscopic atmosphere, mostly empty by eight. Permanent streams: upper, thinning out, flows lonely to the marsh; lower, puddles in retreat; surface recall. Wetlands: dewy spider webs across the reeds and sedges; four blue jays play follow the leader, fly blue, black and white above the marsh, back and forth, voices plunder the morning, and then atrophy in the distance. Pond: a small parade of mist; straight up and gone. On the road, green acorns turn into green flour; titmice take note. Bumblebees pollinate jewelweed, hang black and white from orange trumpets.
Last night: the triumph of a shooting star; the misery of a fallen tree. Sitting on the porch, speaking on the phone, a meteorite blazed an arc across the sky, west to east. Later, walking the dogs, a mature tree moaned, creaked, swayed, disconnected from its roots, and collapsed, taking out neighboring branches. Maybe neighboring trees. A resounding crash and then silence, as though nothing untoward had happened. When to let go . . . a decision made in collaboration with the wind.
Three red-breasted nuthatches, on the move, pitch rising, nasal calls; follow the path of dozens of others that passed through the valley last week. Unknown Empidonax flycatcher poses on a leafless alder branch, perfect posture, straight up, eyering, and faint wing marks; either willow or alder. Pewee deep in the woods still has reason to sing. Two catbirds sulking in the brush. A vagabond crow on the compost pile, a quick, hollow call, like clicking sticks together, flys out over the valley; changes its tune to ringing caws, denouncing my return home.
Red squirrels wander north in the Hollow, itinerant pinecone harvesters, invested in the industry, draw closer to my home. Cones hang in clusters, like long, thin grapes; without pausing, out on the ends of slender branches, expeditious squirrels cut one after the other; a rain of pinecones; trickling, splashing, pouring. Lazy gray squirrels make a mess of the front yard. Overcoming inertia, a challenge for grays squirrels as well as people.
Bat, a party of one, behind the barn door. The blissful ease of sunrise.
I see all those green, sticky pine cones hitting the forest floor...how do the squirrels deal with the stickiness? Are they storing cones somewhere until they ripen and open? Or are they somehow prying the scales apart and eating seeds now?