Patterns
We've been in this house for over a year now (we moved in at the end of January last year). Things in the natural world have begun to repeat:
On the morning dog walk today, out of the corner of my eye, saw a sudden circle of ripples appear on the pond. It was a pair of ducks, male and female. There was a pair there last year, I don't know if they are the same ones.
Similarly, the Eastern Phoebes are back in the nest under the barn eaves. Same ones? It's likely, since they return to the same nesting area year after year. I'm surprised they're back, though, since our cat came upon some of the fledglings under the nest last year and had herself a snack. That was upsetting; for weeks we'd been watching the mother and father take turns flying back and forth with food for the babies in the nest. I wonder if birds mourn the death of their children. Other animals such as cows, appear to do so.
Yesterday I also heard the mating call of the Ruffed Grouse. By beating the air with his wings, the male makes a bizarre sound like a helicopter or a lawnmower engine getting started. I remember the first time I heard this: I was about seven years old and we had just moved into our cabin in the woods of New Hampshire. I was right outside the house (I was scared of the woods at that point; I was a city girl) playing or reading. I heard this sound that I thought was an avalanche or an earthquake and I ran hollering into the house to my mother and told her about it. She got scared, too, because she thought it was the police in a helicopter coming in for a landing in our garden for some kind of raid.
You can hear the sound of a serenading Ruffed Grouse here:
The peepers and wood frogs have been making their mating sounds intermittently in our small pond. They aren't very enthusiastic yet. The days have been cloudy and cool.
My tomato plants have germinated. Last year, because I knew the growing season was short here, I started things several weeks earlier than I needed to. Things got leggy and some of them (the squash) never recovered. I also restrained myself with respect to quantity: I do not need 50 tomato plants. It's hard not using up the entire packet of seeds. It feels wasteful.
In the fall, we planted bare root blueberries and blackberries, and covered them in straw for the winter. Yesterday I pulled back the straw and saw, from the color of the stems and the tiniest hints of fresh growth, that they made it through the winter.
And now, I'm off for some fresh coffee and to feed the wood stove.
On the morning dog walk today, out of the corner of my eye, saw a sudden circle of ripples appear on the pond. It was a pair of ducks, male and female. There was a pair there last year, I don't know if they are the same ones.
Similarly, the Eastern Phoebes are back in the nest under the barn eaves. Same ones? It's likely, since they return to the same nesting area year after year. I'm surprised they're back, though, since our cat came upon some of the fledglings under the nest last year and had herself a snack. That was upsetting; for weeks we'd been watching the mother and father take turns flying back and forth with food for the babies in the nest. I wonder if birds mourn the death of their children. Other animals such as cows, appear to do so.
Yesterday I also heard the mating call of the Ruffed Grouse. By beating the air with his wings, the male makes a bizarre sound like a helicopter or a lawnmower engine getting started. I remember the first time I heard this: I was about seven years old and we had just moved into our cabin in the woods of New Hampshire. I was right outside the house (I was scared of the woods at that point; I was a city girl) playing or reading. I heard this sound that I thought was an avalanche or an earthquake and I ran hollering into the house to my mother and told her about it. She got scared, too, because she thought it was the police in a helicopter coming in for a landing in our garden for some kind of raid.
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| Photo of Ruffed Grouse from Wikipedia |
The peepers and wood frogs have been making their mating sounds intermittently in our small pond. They aren't very enthusiastic yet. The days have been cloudy and cool.
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| Zinnia seedlings |
In the fall, we planted bare root blueberries and blackberries, and covered them in straw for the winter. Yesterday I pulled back the straw and saw, from the color of the stems and the tiniest hints of fresh growth, that they made it through the winter.
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| Tomato seedlings, growing toward the light. |
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