on impermanence

At some point last night or early this morning, yesterday’s daffodil bud burst its casing and bloomed. I have no idea exactly when it happened nor how long it took. I wish I had seen it. Perhaps I would have gotten bored watching it. Perhaps the process is too slow for the human eye to perceive. Yesterday’s bud is gone. I can never make that exact photo again. It is precisely this impermanence that motivates me. Nature is in a continuous state of unfolding. Never the same from one moment to the next. And yet always beautiful.

yellow daffodil (Narcissus)

yesterday, today, and tomorrow

This daffodil bud photo I made today won’t win any awards, but in contrast to yesterdays photo it does help me illustrate my enthusiasm for these transition months (April and November). Such visible evidence of where we were and where we are heading are everywhere right now. Soon the foliage will be too dense to pick out such things. And soon enough we will be between two different seasons, talking to us in their own idioms about the future and the past.

daffodil bud

on nostalgia

I always get a little nostalgic for the season that has just passed, no matter how tired I was of it at the time.  I picked up this end-of-winter stem on my walk today. Spent. Tired. Wind blown. Done. It’s evocative of how I was feeling just a couple of weeks ago. But here we are, on the brink of greening. Living with the seasons–noticing them tip-toe in, fully express, and then quietly die back–if one of my great pleasures in life. In my book, I talk about the 72 microseasons of the North. I love every one of them. Like children, I don’t really have a favorite and can’t imagine life without any one of them.

over-wintered garden stem

spring clean up

I know I have told you how busy I am with my book launch. And yet, I can not resist doing a day of my usual spring clean up. It’s 70 degrees and sunny, the birds are singing, and the emails can wait. I am sure a lot of you think of spring clean-up as necessary drudgery. But I love it. I think a lot of northerners love it. After four months of being mostly cooped up inside, spending a warm afternoon outside, pulling back the leaf litter to reveal a million tiny shoots of new-growth green is intoxicating. Everything is charged. Electrified. I can’t let it slip by.

lichen covered branches

passing through

Our migrating birds start to return in March, peaking about now. Many pass through on there way further north, but several stay. Unfortunately, this junco ended his journey here.

Are you familiar with the Merlin app? I am a huge fan. Here’s what Merlin said was in my yard just this week: junco, red-winged black bird, hairy woodpecker, downy woodpecker, canada goose, mallard, black-capped chickadee, robin, blue jay, cardinal, house finch, song sparrow, red-bellied woodpecker, goldfinch, grackle, nuthatch, crow, swamp sparrow, pine siskin, sandhill crane, wood duck, tufted titmouse, white-throated sparrow, red-shouldered hawk, pileated woodpecker, eastern bluebird, turkey, loon, bald eagle, barred owl, and great horned owl.

junco