6:29 a.m. 46 degrees, wind SE 2 mph. Sky: a long, mauve-edged cloud in the west, embossed in powder blue; along the opposite horizon, a congress of smaller, whiter clouds scuds north. Intermittent streams: dry, again. Permanent streams: less emphatic—less turbulent, less water, less babble—flowing at approximately half capacity. Wetlands: sparse ground fog low, wide bands higher; along the far shoreline, jagged evergreens and gaunt hardwoods softened by mist, framed by the long, dark, mauve-edged cloud. Pond: sparsely carpeted, pine needles and yellow leaves, mostly black cherry. Big-toothed aspen leaves, signs of yellowing.
AOR: red eft, cold and motionless, an orange salamander en route to a tan marsh, escorted off the road
Red-shouldered hawk, aloft at dawn, cries, the shrillness of a cool morning. How much longer will he punctuate my walks?
As the leaves come down, bald-faced hornet nests suddenly appear in the woods, unmasked by a downpour of red and yellow. They hang from stout limbs, suspended like Christmas ornaments. One October, several years ago, I found a hornet nest on an outer maple branch, a metropolis of predatory insects; until the leaves came down, I never knew they were there. The boys and I had collected garter snakes below the nest. Apparently, I never raised my head.
The nest, stark against the setting sun, was eighteen inches long, tapered on either end, gray as the winter sky. Pregnant queen hornets winter in mouse holes and crevices, and any remaining hornets had already been killed by frost. I wanted to filet the nest, to have the boys feel the texture of hornet paper, see the horizontal layers of brood cells that the paper covers, each cell a perfect hexagon. I assumed we'd find some pupae, larvae, eggs, incipient queens, and incipient drones, one per cell, harmlessly frozen, left in situ.
Since heights are not my forte, I would need help to retrieve the nest, perhaps a cherry picker and a Green Mountain Power linesman. Unexpectedly and unwittingly, an ally appeared. One afternoon, as I lunched in the dining room, gazing mindlessly out the window, I noticed a pair of black wings on either side of the nest, flicking. Standing precariously on spindly branches, a crow tore off pieces of hornet paper, which floated like confetti into the pasture. When the hole was large enough, the crow began to eat frozen hornets.
A second crow appeared and pestered the first, which flew off with a large chunk of the nest. The crow dropped its booty, which I retrieved. Then, my boys acquainted themselves with the inner working of a bald-faced hornet's nest and the catholic diet of crows . . . and the joyousness of serendipity.
Late last night, the voice of a lonesome snow goose floated through the bedroom window.