7:29 a.m. 21 degrees, wind NNW 9 mph, a grim disturbance. Gaunt pines creak. Sifting and stirring, crowns rotate clockwise. Sky: gray grades to blue and white. A mountain of clouds blocks the sun. Permanent streams: panes of ice like teeth or stalactites, grown from sprays and splashes, extend down from the mouths of episodic caves. I'm mesmerized by the outpour. Dogs, waiting for my recovery, sit down. Wetlands: a holding pattern. Wind in reeds speaks in tongues. An absence of red squirrels, which have escaped the elements. Under the snow. Probably, visiting food caches, stoking interior fires. Pond: artistic deer took the night off—no new tracks. Old tracks, rimmed in ice, widened, deepened. Resembles the signature of a bouncing ball rather than a wandering deer.
Very high, a raven strokes the sky, slow, leisurely flaps. Heads south, bird on a mission. Unleashes a volley of off-key croaks. Lonesome nuthatch repetitive tooting, the winter analog of the red-eyed vireo. A pair of hen turkeys under the feeder mix it up with a trio of gray squirrels. Chickadees and titmice, an integrated party of eight, in the alders, the pines, back and forth across the road, from neighbor to neighbor, ambassadors to the local sunflower food shelves. A morning in suspension . . . everywhere.