March 1

March

It is surely early spring when the great horned owls earnestly have their morning conversations. They must have awakened me at 3 am, and I lay in bed for an hour listening to them calling back and forth.

One must have been just next to the house, on the north side in the small copse of woods. On occasion we will spot an owl, either great horned or barred, perched in the mid boughs of the large white pine that dominates just there. The other sounded farther away, perhaps deep in the lower woods where the access road bends toward Asnebumskit Pond.

They had quite a periodic rhythm, with one calling a distinct “hoo, hoo,” followed by a pause of ten seconds or so. Then, the partner would repeat, followed by an interval of nearly a minute. This went on for over an hour, and I began to wonder why their conversation had reached such an impasse that they wouldn’t change the subject.

Great horned owls can be easily fooled into returning a call. I’ve gone outside at such an hour, stood on the porch and called “hoo, hoo” to the woods below. Often this time of year I will receive a reply. Once I even coaxed an owl to approach from the woods, calling then moving, calling then moving closer. It must have stopped at the woods edge at the lower part of the garden beyond the barn. It called once more and was gone.

February 28

February at an end. It is a time of transition, even if it comes as an ebb and flow. It is easier now to reflect that winter has gone by quickly, when we are nearing the end, and spring fever is beginning to settle in. Late November seems like a long time ago, when we steeled ourselves for the coming darkness.

The winter has its own vitality, though in a different sense. As the nights grow longer and cold descends, we turn to our own fires both physically in the hearth and spiritually in the mind. It is a time of reflection and of search for meanings, when brilliant night skies display infinite possibilities of places so remote. We can’t help but search for our place and purpose amid all the contrasts of beyond and within.

February 27

As if sharing the anticipation, a young pair of red-wing black birds were at the feeder today. At first glance, it was difficult to identify them, save for the fact they were of something different than our usual titmice, juncos, chick-a-dees and finches that predominate during the daytime in winter.

Only the smallest hint of the red portion of the epaulet flashed as the birds foraged on the ground below the feeder. Still, we can’t help but smile, knowing that within the next month we will hear the nesting call of these males -  prrriiii   deeee, prrriiii   deeee, as they await the coming of the females.

Those shoulders that conceal will then proudly display the red and yellow, a badge of masculinity to attract a potential mate.

It snowed briefly this afternoon, followed by a driving sleet. February gives up slowly, and I wonder if the black birds experience regret.

February 26

The pine boughs, bent over from the burden of the heavy snows of yesterday, spent the day slowly releasing clumps here and there as the temperatures rose. It was late winter’s own version of the symphony we look forward to hearing in spring, when the rains drop incessantly from the budding trees and roof eaves, making rhythmic notes. We anticipate these things after the long winter, which apart from the wind and sleet, is bereft of common sounds.

It is a small awakening of sound, of course, but it is a harbinger of the chorus that soon awaits. If you listen carefully, it has begun in the creaking of the road bed that heaves with frost and thaw. It is in the slow movement of the sap in the maples, rising in earnest to fuel the budding of new growth. It is the robin’s song or the titmouse’s call, which has changed ever so slightly in signal of the coming spring. Soon we will leave behind the cold sounds of winter winds against the house or the still, soundless nights of January where no noise interrupts the silence in the woods.

February 25

Today is the full moon, know as the snow moon, and it has lived up to its namesake. We received 6” of heavy wet snow throughout the day, sticking well to the pine boughs and arbor vitae, bending them over in protest.

I feel the same way this time of year, as February is about to give way and we begin to chomp at the bit for signs of the season’s change. These late winter snows, so often laden with moisture, weigh heavily on the body and mind. We can take comfort that the snows of late February and March may come in like an unwelcome lion, but the days warm too insistently now for them to last long. We begin to see patches of dormant grass here and there in the sunny spots, and certain buds of pussy willows and magnolias are unmistakably swelling.

So come visit, old snow moon, and know that tomorrow you will begin to wane.

February 24

The light of the nearly full moon shone brightly enough to illuminate the feeder area in the porch dooryard. Just before turning in to bed, as is the habit I called the dogs to go outside for their nightly bathroom, and I thankfully caught sight of it in the moonlight just before I opened the door.

Sitting unaware underneath the feeder was a small opossum, digging intently at the snowpack to locate hidden seed casts. It was healthy looking as far as I could tell, though opossums aren’t exactly the model creature of aesthetic.

Just then, one of the dogs, Tag, barked a series of terrier yelps, and the opossum waddled quickly into the small berm that separates the dooryard from the access road. We watched it cross the road, easily lit by the overhead moon, enter the woods to the south, and make for the neighbor’s barn.

February 23

On the knoll that fronts the entry field to Anna Maria College, I stopped to watch a small group of Cedar Wax Wings flitting among the small copse of crab apple trees that sit alone at the summit. The now sere fruit still dangles in profusion from the bare branches, small apples that are no more than ¼” in diameter and slightly shriveled. No matter, for the birds devoured them readily, with reckless gluttony.

They seemed completely at ease with my standing just under the branches of one of the trees, while they hopped about putting apples into their mouths in astonishing succession. Striking birds that remind me of masked bandits, similar in a way that chick-a-dees do. With their curious nature though, chick-a-dees resemblance is overshadowed by their friendly demeanor. The wax wings are aloof enough to better assume the bandit persona.

And suddenly as one, the small flock rose quickly into the air and was gone.

February 22

Our little red skittered among the maple branches at midday, under a warming sun that took the temperature near 40, following a night in the teens. His movements were at first peculiar, seeming to jump forward only a few inches at a time with his mouth touching the branch here and there.

Upon closer look through the binoculars, it was evident what I had suspected; little red was testing various points of the branches for wound sites, where building sap had begun to ease out in tiny amounts. And so little red would lick, move on, lick, and continue.

The timing is on schedule, and a reminder of our slow change in season. The warming day after such a cold night has created sufficient pressure difference in the maple, and what we anticipate in early spring, maple sugaring season will soon be upon us.

The sugar farmers won’t begin tapping just yet. No, we need more days of warm and nights of cold. Perhaps a week or two out, and then we’ll begin to see the taps and buckets hanging about the trees, put there by those still inclined to reap the maple’s bounty. For now, we enjoy the early harvesters, the squirrels and birds who also take in this special treat.

February 21

The vernal pool is draining again, now that the midday temperature is warm enough to melt the small spillway that crosses the access road. Just a few days ago, this little stream was frozen through, stopping the outward flow of the pool uphill. Now, though there is a skin of ice on the surface, the flow of water is visible just beneath, interrupted only so with small pockets of air or bits of last autumn’s detritus made loose by the slowly receding pond.

Come late spring, this flow will cease altogether, isolating the wetland and its budding fecundity. The water is mostly clear now, though soon it will be laden with a myriad of life from algal growth, phytoplankton, zooplankton and the awakening hordes of amphibians and invertebrates which revive this marvelous ecosystem.

It will be from here that our hylas will begin to call, signaling the awakening of life and the beginning of another vernal cycle.

February 20

Over the snowpack that encircles the big sugar maple which dominates just beyond the bird feeders in back, a small vole came scurrying just so. It skirted the base of the tree, using the bare grass on the leeward side as cover, pausing just enough so that for a split second it blended in. Then, for reasons I can only guess it darted around the tree and disappeared from view.

We tend to see the voles more often this time of year, as warming temperatures and more insistent sunshine work on the snowpack. As it recedes, small tunnels begin to appear, which reveal a complex network of passages across the side yard. Actually, it is the snow above the tunnels that melts, and with the tunnel floors having been compressed by frequent use, the effect is that slight lines of visible ground become revealed when the temperatures rise.

It is tempting to think that activity ceases in the ground and below, as creatures either perish upon the first frost or resort to hibernation or torpor, shut away in some ground nest or den. Where these highways of tunnels lead, I can only guess, but I can report that there is a general confluence around the cast off seed that peppers the snowpack around the feeders. So we have both trespassers above ground coming to get their fill with gray and red squirrels, rabbits, and the infrequent raccoon. And, we are invaded in secret from below.

February 18

Our transient pack of juvenile delinquents has returned to the feeder area. They come just after first light, bounding in from the direction of the lower woods, I suspect coming from their elevated nests that we can see in the tops of some of the larger hardwoods.

At anytime, there are roughly four or five of these gray squirrels around the porch, eating as much of the cast off seeds as they can find, while also inventing new techniques of raiding the feeder itself. They are a comedy to watch, occasionally alternating between solitary feeding to interacting with one another as they play and quarrel around the dooryard.

When they arrive, our little red squirrel tends to leave, for it is apparent that their niches don’t overlap in harmony. To listen to little red, one would think that he rules the roost, with his incessant chittering and stamping of his feet announcing and protesting the arrival of the pack of grays. No sooner do they invade then does little red scurry, sometimes across the snow in the back headed for his nest in the barn, while other times up the big maple that dominates just beyond the feeder. The grays settle in, one after another to eat and play and scold among themselves, while little red runs along the highway of branches, chittering away in protest.

February 17

Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal have been visiting more regularly, coming tentatively to the tube feeder in the morning and again just before dinner. He is the more timid, preferring to sit cautiously in the branches of the small spruce that borders the access road. He watches her descend to the snowy ground beneath the feeder, as she hops gingerly, cocking her head about to select those sunflower seeds that have been cast aside from above.

He is strikingly red now, in almost sharp relief within the dark greens of the pine, peppered also with dusty snow to give it all a mixture of greens and whites with a singular splash of cardinal red. 

February 16

By midday, under clear skies, the sun had warmed the air temperature into the upper 40s, and with only a hint of a breeze it felt warm out. It is a relative warm, of course. I think about this notion, when the sultry days of summer stretch one hazy day into the next. I play the game, thinking of coming cooler weather, imagining it to be 50 degrees, if only for an instant – to break the hold of the summer swelter.

40s for an afternoon in summer would feel like ice against our bodies, whereas today under the sunny skies it is a delight. No need to pretend of moments of summer warmth to ease the cold stretch. Nature has released her grip, if only for a day or so.

The snow melts in earnest, and even the dormant grass is showing in spots that didn’t drift too deeply from the storm of last week. Small rivulets of melt water create little rivers on the driveway, pooling into small puddles in the low spots near the grass edge. There they will endure, until evaporation, for though it is indeed warm, the ground remains frozen just below. Water must wait to seep into the Earth.

February 15

A small south facing patch of snow next to the moon garden looks as if someone has sprinkled pepper upon it. The springtails have emerged as if on cue to the warming sun and retreating snow.

There are myriads of them, jumping about so slightly that it is difficult to notice from several feet away. Yet up close, they are a frenzy of activity as each tiny springtail explodes forth, moving no more than a fraction of an inch on the snow surface.

Yesterday, I didn’t notice their arrival, though the conditions were decidedly less warm and the cloud cover predominant. Sometime today, they emerged from adjacent ground, exposed by the warmth, to jump outward onto the snow.

They are small harbingers of our coming spring, these small insects that serve to forage the detritus of last year’s leaf litter. They are known as Collembola, but the familiar name more aptly describes their curious behavior.

February 14

On the far side of the farm fields, in the woods below what is called the lower field, is a small, dilapidated square outbuilding, nearly 4 foot on each side, with the vestiges of a hip-style roof. In the summer months, it is impossible to see this building, because the overgrowth of vegetation blocks any view into the woods. As it is, even in the winter when the trees are bare and the ground vegetation of golden rod, sumac, tall grass, and various ivy is largely gone, the outbuilding is still difficult to locate among the trunks and branches.

Actually, it is easier to find by sound, if the wind is light enough so as not to mask the noise. Just next to the building is an artesian spring, which runs all year, even in the bitter cold of January and February. The building may have at one time been a small storage shed for collecting water, or perhaps an abandoned pump house of some sort.

This spring lets forth a continual stream of the most crystal clear, clean and notably cold fresh water. For our family, this spring was a lifesaver a few years ago, during a notable December ice storm that disrupted power in Paxton for over eight days.

Because I knew of the spring, each day I would trudge through the snow across Cournoyer’s fields, carrying two five-gallon buckets to fill. The tree fall in the woods near the spring on account of the ice damage made access a little tricky, but through careful stepping and ducking I was able to reach the flow.

I’d fill both buckets and bring them back to the house, one for water and the other for washing dishes or for use to flush the toilette. It was rustic living these eight days, where darkness came early, and we huddled close to the woodstove reading by candlelight with tea made from the water of the artesian well steadily brewing on the stovetop.

February 13

Thinking about the stream that leads from Asnebumskit to Streeter Pond. This time of year is favorable to hike the lower woods, provided that the snow isn’t too deep. It is relatively easy to pick out the deer trails in the woods, with the lack of ground cover and obscuring tree leaf, plus the poison ivy that is a ubiquitous menace is at bay.

Follow the stream to Streeter Pond, and skirt the shoreline to the opposite side, where Grove Street elbows into Pond Street. Here, another stream outlet drops more insistently as the landscape falls into a miniature valley that descends toward Pine Hill Reservoir. Roughly 100 feet from Streeter Pond, the creek veers away slightly to the northwest, and there is the remnant of a trail alongside. Though I doubt that this trail receives more than a handful of curious hikers in the span of several years, if you follow it along for roughly 1/10 mile into the woods, there is evidence of a time when this area must have been quite active with human industry.

It took me a moment to realize what I was seeing, when I came upon a fairly large pit that was situated between where the trail had veered away from the stream and the water, which was flowing more quickly on account of a fairly modest drop in elevation. The pit was filled with about a foot of snow, perhaps less in those areas were the filtered sun could reach. The give away was the stone lining in the side walls, partially obscured by years of in growth from the surrounding vegetation. I suspected that this was at one time a foundation, and its location next to the stream strongly hinted at a potential mill.

Sure enough, just near the stream, not 25 yards away from the old foundation, was an unmistakable millstone, roughly 30 inches in diameter, sitting amongst other debris of the forest. The stone was badly covered in lichen and moss, and heaven knows how long it has sat there. What a curious find, seemingly so far from the center of our town, yet an important vestige of its settlement past. A 1961 booklet I obtained from the town’s Historical Society indicates that the old Pine Hill Farm operated no less than three mills on this creek site somewhere between 1755 and 1830.

February 12

A sure sign of February greeted me abruptly this morning on my walk. Just down Grove Street, past the bend in the road near Robinson’s, is a small trail that leads into the woods. The trail is a semi-maintained access point to the upper woods that separate Asnebumskit Pond from its twin Streeter Pond, which lies a quarter mile downhill. The trail crosses over a small creek that serves as the distributing watercourse from the upper Asnebumskit to the lower Streeter.

As I passed by the trailhead, the odor was unmistakable. A skunk had sprayed somewhat recently, and from the strength of the air my guess is that the offender might have a den near the culvert that affords passage for the stream.

February is just about right for skunks to become more active, usually intent on beginning the mating season. I am aware of this fact each year, but still in the midst of cold and dark, snow and ice, when the weather still cries loudly of winter hibernation it is a surprise to have such a familiar smell at a time when outdoor smells are all but absent.

Skunks really are curious and downright cute little creatures, and we have our fair share of them within a radius of our house. They are distinct in coloring too, and just when I become accustomed to the predominant black with diminutive white stripe, I’ll come upon a largely white skunk. I don’t suppose there is any selective advantage in color variants, though perhaps the Darwinian may claim the favorable nature of white in winter, though this is nullified of course in the temperate months. Perhaps variation is neutral, like the stripes of the wooly bears we see ambling along in the fall.

February 11

At the near edge of Asnebumskit Pond, just after the access road ends in a gate as the land berms upward toward the man-made dam, is a large section of Phragmites grass. This grouping is along approximately 50 feet of shoreline, with the reed stems situated just inside the shore.

They are easy to spot approaching the pond from the road, as grass heads reach nearly 15 feet into the air all swaying together like summer corn stalks caught in a breeze. The heads are sere brown, having dropped their prodigious seed last fall, yet resilient in lasting until the new cycle.

It’s no mistake that the grass has successfully taken here, since the prevailing winds blow the wave action to this berm shoreline, where aberrant seeds can more easily colonize in abundance of sunshine and water.

The pond is an expanse of the purest white from the big snows of two days ago, and the Phragmites are cast in a sharp relief of brown on white with intermittent blue sky peeking through the heads as they sway back and forth. Come spring, when seed and shoot go to new plant and the emergent grasses begin to grow anew, the Phragmites gets lost amid the explosion of greens and yellows that populate this pond.

February 10

The access road that leads to the lower woods and Asnebumskit Pond is drifted in nearly three feet deep. This morning, I put on a pair of snowshoes and gaiters and trudged my way down the road toward the pond.

The snow remains nearly weightless and though deep it is fairly easy to shuffle along, leaving a series of small trenches in my wake. Sometimes, when the snow is like this, I’ll bring the dogs along, and they follow behind my footsteps, using the trenches as paths to navigate the deep snow, porpoising from one patch to the next.

The winds from yesterday had finally lessened, and the cut in the woods that is the road leading to the pond is incredibly beautiful, with the morning sun angling through the forest and reflecting off of snow that covers nearly everything.

It is all the more magical to simply listen to the sounds all around – the barest whisper of a gentle breeze that flutters the sere leaves, the curious call of a chick-a-dee that comes to visit from a nearby pine bough, and the damping sound of snow falling from branches in clumps to the ground, set loose by the warming of the morning sun.

Compared to the fury of the past two days, when winter pinned us within the house and hearth, the gentle still of this sun-dappled section of the lower woods is revitalizing.

February 9

The snow was still coming in earnest this morning, and while the wind continued to shape drifts outside, I noted that the barometer had started to rise slightly overnight. The nor'easter must be moving off shore of Boston, evident in the wind shifting to the north and pressure on the rise.

The door to the porch from the sunroom was nearly impassable, with snow having drifted in to the midpoint. Snow is abundant, having fallen steadily throughout the night as a light fluffy blanket made living in the swirling gales which created false mountains and eddies. The wind is a seeming living thing, picking up spindrifts of snow and sending them across the yard, around the barn edge and fleeing to the lower gardens.

The news reported 30 inches of snow here, with drifts to four feet in places, still accumulating steadily at midday, though periodic breaks appeared in the fast-moving cloud cover. We watched it move and shift across the front yard all day, leaving small patches of bare grass in the lee side of trees.

There’s no sense in digging out just yet. We’ll have to clear the driveway when the wind abates, otherwise the snow will simply drift in again.

By late afternoon, I noticed a tractor moving in the driveway of Cournoyers. Sure enough, the wind let up enough to make plowing a sensible project.

February 8

A light snow began midmorning, gentle flakes that drifted in on an easterly breeze. This direction is unusual and ominous of what is to come later. Our winter winds typically situate from the north or northwest, following fronts that descend from the Great Lakes as Alberta Clippers.

Not so today. This storm had been forecasted several days ago as a mighty nor’easter which would bring possibly historic blizzard conditions over the day or so.

I started noting the barometer each hour today, recording with trepidation the readings:  30.2 at 8am; 30.17 at 9am; 30.15 at 10am; 30.05 at 12:00pm; 29.95 at 2pm; 29.92 at 3pm; 29.8 at 5pm; 29.2 at 8pm.   The snow and wind intensified by 5pm, with nearly 3 inches of fresh cover and the trees across the road swaying dangerously. We sat in the fireplace room, with woodstove going full out to heat the room. Aside from the crackle of the wood and creaking of the stove, the only sound to be heard was the relentless wind against the house, truly a freight train noise blowing snow in all directions and making the light from the lamppost out front a shadowy figure.

February 7

The sun was brilliant this afternoon, still angled enough to stream into the sunroom, blocked only by the branches of the woods that border the access road. It is really only at this time of year that direct sun enters the room, for the spring leaf in the trees and the rising sun in the vernal sky make direct light impossible.

It is easy to forget how closed in the house becomes, when the forest reawakens with vibrancy and the spreading leaves shrink our vistas. Now, I can look down toward Asnebumskit Pond and just barely see the sunlight reflecting off of its icy surface, visible between the trunks and branches of oaks, maples and ash which lay dormant.

The world seems bigger now, and our eyes can more easily look beyond to discover what lies out there. This is a welcome exchange in winter, which on account of the cold and dark we tend to draw within and hibernate. Better yet to see through the dormant woods, to the ridgeline far in the distance, to go there and further, if only in our mind.

February 6

Thinking more of snow today. The weatherman predicts a major nor’easter in two days hence, and evidently we are to receive between 12 to 20 inches of heavy, wet snow.

This means work of the physical kind, and so much snow at once makes it difficult to enjoy it much afterward.

Years ago in college, I took a course with the comely title of the “Physics of Snow” as a part of my general studies. (I thought wrongly at the time that the course would largely address aspects of snow skiing). What did interest me the most concerned the characteristics of avalanches – how they are affected by the weight, crystal structure, age and incline of the snow mass, among other variables. If we do receive a heavy snow in a couple of days, I will think about these variables when I watch the accumulation on the roof. This is particularly true for the valleys of the joining roofs, where drifting and settling can cause pileups of 2 feet or more.

February 5

Another snow dusting happened overnight which put a fresh blanket of at most ¼ inch on the ground. And, just like a couple of days ago, the snow was nearly weightless and fluffy – the kind in which you could simply blow gently on it to move it about.

This snow is water poor, meaning that the frozen crystals of water are large, where pockets of air can easily reside within. It is a snow made for shuffling through, where no moisture seems to accumulate on your pants or shoes. It is not a snow for packing or shaping, for the fun of snowmen or snowballs. This is the snow we often see in the artificial globes, turned over and again to make the white particles swirl and dance as if carried effortlessly on an imaginary eddy.

More often than not, here in Paxton we receive the dense, water-laden snows borne by nor’easters that collect humid air from the south before falling from the sky upon us. This is the heavy snow of winter and while enjoyable to shape and pack, it is nevertheless a burden to the shovel and to our roofs.

Light snows are ephemeral things, dancing in the wind and alighting on the ground. They vanish quickly with a moderate sunlight. I like these snow globe storms that come and go.

February 4

The chick-a-dees seem to be in a frenzy this afternoon at the feeder outside the sunroom. Sarah will fill the tube in the morning with black oil sunflower, and by midafternoon it is nearly ¾ empty. Spend time watching the feeder for a few minutes, and it is easy to see why the feed drops so quickly.

With four perching holes at the feeder, each has a chick-a-dee client almost continually. It is comical to watch, with chick-a-dees-in-waiting either perched on the top of the tube itself or the shepherd’s pole or fluttering nearby waiting for a space to vacate. At one time I counted 16 birds near the feeder, all in a frenzy trying to get their fill of seed.

This degree of earnest foraging may suggest the beginning stage of preparing for the summer migration. Such birds will accumulate fat reserves from which they draw upon when making their long return flights to the north.

Without the feeder here, the birds would rely on the natural seed, cast off from either tree or weed, and likely they would forage in the lower woods or the line of spruce across the road. And in those non-mast years, when the trees produce far less seed, the birds are more earnest about their pickings. This may explain why it seems particularly frenetic at our feeder, as if the available food source in the surrounding woods is thin, while our high-protein sunflower is gluttonously plenty.

We’ll enjoy them for awhile – the friendly little chick-a-dees, who seem unperturbed by our coming and goings, cocking their heads and regarding us with small beady black eyes as we pass closely by. They, the juncos and the titmice are our predominant winter small birds in the dooryard. We have our house finches, yellows, starlings and grackles, cardinals and jays. But the chick-a-dees remain our affable feeder tenants.