Category Archives: Seasons

Books, Seasons, Snapshots, Wanderings, Wildflowers

Winter color

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“The color, we say, is gone, remembering vivid October and verdant May. What we really mean is that the spectacular color has passed and we now have the quiet tones of Winter around us, the browns, the tans, a narrower range of greens, with only an occasional accent in the lingering Winter berries. But the color isn’t really gone.
The meadow is sere tan, but that is a tan of a dozen different shades from gold to russet. The fallen leaves have been leached of their reds and yellows, but theirs is no monotone by any means. The bronze curve of the goldenrod stem emphasizes the ruddy exclamation point of the cattail. The rough brown bark of the oak makes the trunk of the sugar maple appear armored in rusty iron. The thorny stalk of the thistle stands beside the cinnamon seed head of the pungent bee balm. Dark eyes stare from the white parentheses of the stark birches, bronze tufts of one-winged seeds tassel the box elder, miniature “cones” adorn the black-brown alders at the swamp’s edge.
In the woods, the insistent green of Christmas fern and partridgeberry leaf compete with the creeping ancients, ground cedar and running pine. Hemlock, spruce and pine trees cling to their own shades of green, individual as the trees themselves. And on their trunks are paint patches of the ancient lichen, tan and red and blue and green, like faint reflections of vanished floral color.
The color is still there, though its spectrum has somewhat narrowed. Perhaps it takes a Winter eye to see it, an eye that can forget October and not yearn for May too soon.”
-Hal Borland, Sundial of the Seasons
(still my favorite book in the world!)
I love the way this author makes me stop to notice or puts a name to the things that grab my attention. Always there’s something to learn from Borland’s observations.
Anyway…
Anyone recognize the flower in this pic?
Seasons, Whatever

Praise and thanksgiving

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“Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not despair.
Praise what little there’s left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees.
Praise the meadow of dried weeds:
yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer.
Praise the blue sky that hasn’t cracked.
Praise the sun slipping down behind the beechnuts,
praise the quilt of leaves that covers the grass:
Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum, Sugar Maple.
Though darkness gathers,
praise our crazy fallen world;
it’s all we have, and it’s never enough.”
Barbara Crooker – Radiance
Seasons, Snapshots, Wanderings

Comfort food

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There’s nothing better on a blistery autumn day than a properly made pot pie.

(or a woolly bear caterpillar)

😉

Common folklore says the severity of the coming winter can be predicted by the amount of black on a woolly bear. It’s believed that if a woolly bear caterpillar’s brown stripe is thick, the winter weather will be mild and if narrow, the winter will be severe.

I’m guessing none of that mattered to the mantis.

(Click on the pic for a better view of the gory details)

In the new neighborhood, Seasons

The best season ever

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Dear Summer,

For a few weeks after Labor Day I pretend you won’t leave me. I stroll along the empty beach and wade, alone, in the still-warm water. Trees somewhere else might be screaming with color and light, but here at the shore, the sky is higher and the sea darker. Tiny sanderlings dart from the waves at my feet. I close my eyes and breathe you in, thinking you’re the best season and I will love you forever.

Then, with a quick sweep of goldenrod over the dunes, you’re gone.

I’ll admit to having feelings for Fall, but left as I am, now, with earlying evenings and doles of rain, I’m tempted to flee south and pursue you elsewhere. It’s nothing serious, yet, but there will be apple orchards and pumpkin farms to visit and cranberries ripening in the Pine Barrens. I think you should know that Autumn will tempt my heart away if you’re not generous enough with sunny days.

Icy arrows are pointing the way. Egrets and plovers and laughing gulls blend feathers with sky and are gone with you.

I want to go, too.

I want your misty dawns and searing afternoons, your shimmering lakes and dusks freckled with fireflies. I want sun-warmed tomatoes and fresh strawberries.

 

Missing you already,
Laura.

Seasons, Snapshots

Landmarks

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How about some Borland? It’s been a while…

A man must pause now and then, when the storms of human passion have filled the sky with the dust of emotions, pause and wonder if the old landmarks are still there. So, when the heat of the day is past and evening comes, a man steps outdoors to look, to feel, to sense the world around him.

These late August evenings, a moon well into its first quarter hangs high in the west, where it has been at this phase ever since there was a moon. North, as the dusk deepens, stands the polestar, and beneath it and to the west a few degrees hangs the Big Dipper, just where it has always been on a late August evening. To the east is the Great Square of Pegasus, old and fixed in the firmament when the Greeks first knew it. And overhead flies Cygnus, the swan.

A man listens, and the scratchy stridulation of a katydid rasps at the dusk. There is an answer, then another, and soon there is a chorus. As always, in late Summer, as it was before man was here to listen. And the crickets chirp and trill in the meadow grass, as they have chirped and trilled for several eons. From the edge of the woodland comes the call of the whippoorwill, over and over, repetitious as the years but reminding man that birds were here and flying before man came and walked on two feet.

A breeze moves down the valley, and the leaves whisper in the treetops. Trees that count the centuries, a breeze that curled around this earth when the hills were mountains. The leaves whisper, and a man listens, and he knows that there still are landmarks.


–Hal Borland, Sundial of the Seasons

Pic is of one of my landmark trees… a hackberry I’m told.
In the new neighborhood, Seasons, Snapshots

Late spring weather report

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Is this the coldest, dreariest June ever? Or does it just feel that way here at the Jersey Shore? I feel like I live in London, or somewhere out on the coast of Oregon with all this fog and dampness and rain.

It’s kind of depressing.

There have been moments of light and magic… the rain clicking and tapping its song on the roof… the porch and its electric, marshy yellow-gray smell of storms before they get here… the big flag up the street snapping in the wind and the curtains blowing like ghosts in the night…

There was an hour or so on the beach at Spring Lake yesterday at sunset, after crab cakes for dinner at the inlet with the fishing boats going by with their escort of laughing gulls…

A bit of magic despite the gray, but I’m tired of wearing sweaters and long pants.

Is it summer yet in your part of the world?

Birds, Seasons, Snapshots, Travels with the flock

Such singing

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It was spring
and finally I heard him
among the first leaves–
then I saw him clutching the limb

in an island of shade
with his red feathers
all trim and neat for the new year.
First, I stood still

and thought of nothing.
Then I began to listen.
Then I was filled with gladness–
and that’s when it happened,

when I seemed to float,
to be, myself, a wing or a tree–
and I began to understand
what the bird was saying,

and the sands in the glass
stopped
for a pure white moment
while gravity sprinkled upward

like rain, rising,
and in fact
it became difficult to tell just what it was that was singing–
it was the bird for sure, but it seemed

not a single bird, but himself, and all his brothers,
and also the trees around them,
as well as the gliding, long-tailed clouds
in the perfectly blue sky – all, all of them

were singing.
And, of course, yes, so it seemed,
so was I.
Such soft and solemn and perfect music doesn’t last

for more than a few moments.
It’s one of those magical places wise people
like to talk about.
One of the things they say about it, that is true,

is that, once you’ve been there,
you’re there forever.
Listen, everyone has a chance.
Is it spring, is it morning?

Are there trees near you,
and does your own soul need comforting?
Quick, then–open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song
may already be drifting away.

“Such Singing in the Wild Branches” by Mary Oliver

Just a gentle reminder that Spring is passing, birds are migrating, wildflowers are blooming… get out and find it before it’s done!

Pastimes, Seasons, Snapshots, Wanderings, Wildflowers

Bloodroot

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Books say improbable things about Bloodroot like that it blooms in colonies and that its seeds are spread around the forest by ants.

If the ants were doing their job, Bloodroot would be easier to find. The woods would be carpeted with it, like they are with Spring Beauties and Squill, now.

As it is, I have to get my knees muddy searching for it. If the forest faeries are feeling a need for amusement, they’ll send a couple teenagers along the path to find me butt-up and nose-down in the shady leaf mold.

Pride and decorum be damned, there’s only so many spring days to find Bloodroot. I’m glad to have enjoyed it for another year.

Garden, Pastimes, Seasons, Snapshots

Celebrating spring

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I feasted on some familiar delights today… daffs and crocus and forsythia, a beginner’s yoga class that left me feeling competent for a change (!), a longish walk with Luka past the neighborhood raspberry fields with their huge clump of purple hyacinths blooming right in the middle, the soft fur on Boomer’s cheek with his big ears drooping to meet my fingers, the local osprey pair rebuilding their cell tower nest after it was removed this past winter, newly arrived great egrets stalking the creek at low-tide… all brought a comfortable smile to my face.

How did you celebrate this day?

From the field, In the new neighborhood, Seasons, Whatever

Carousel

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The Carousel at Asbury Park

Today was daffodil day in this part of NJ… and the forsythia has plans.

Spring almost!

An interesting day in the field with clients… I saw the spoon man (how many of you can say you know someone who collects wooden spoons?!?), plus I got a kiss on the cheek from the sweetest little old Italian lady.

😉

(There are rare days when I think I have the best job in the whole-wide world.)