December 31: Tracks

As we grabbed shovels to clear the path to the office this morning, we noticed a distinct line of big bird tracks in the snow that had drifted across the front patio. A crow had clearly walked in the freshly sifted snow right past our front door. Around the corner under my feeders, more tracks, smaller, of songbirds hopping in the snow after seeds.

All morning, no birds
but tracks in the snow,
runes cast for the new year.

December 30: Blowing snow

Serious wind out there blowing snow into broad drifts, wide white waves of snow flying from open fields to swirl across the road like a living thing caught in the glare of our headlights.

Snow animated by wind.
I don't believe
in ghosts, but...

December 29: Misty mountaintop fadeaway

The title of this post sounds a bit like a cross between something from The Hobbit and a Dead song, but the moment was real enough. My husband and I decided we needed to get lunch and treats at Morse's Sauerkraut before the snow storm hits tonight. Driving there, we passed austere snow-covered fields and trees laden with snow under a bleak, blank sky. As we headed home, the first flakes began to fall. As we drove into Camden, cresting a hill that offers a view toward the Mount Megunticook ridge line, we noticed how snowfall along the top of the mountain made it seem to simply fade away into the white sky.

Mountaintop fades into white
snowfall. In dreams
it's like that when I die.

December 28: Clearing

After yesterday's snow storm, shoveling the office walkways this morning with my co-workers...

Scrape of shovel,
faint crackle of ice
sprinkled with salt.

December 27: Riders on the storm

A nor'easter sent snow and freezing rain gusting around my office today. I live too close to work for the weather to be an excuse not to show up, and we didn't lose power, so I put in a full day there. I was, however, pleasantly distracted for much of that time by the birds flocking my tiny window feeders. The regulars--chickadees and titmice--showed up, of course, and what I think is a solitary White-breasted Nuthatch. And then some finches I hadn't seen in a while made an unexpected appearance: goldfinches, their yellow throats looking positively sunny against the snow, Pine Siskins, and at least three redpolls--a boreal visitor I've only had at my feeders a couple times before. The finches chattered away as they chowed down; I could hear them through the window despite the roar of the wind.

Redpolls peck seed from snow.
I catch myself thinking
of raspberries.

Redpoll visitor from last year (window too splattered with snow to get a photograph today!)

December 26: Ice

Last night driving back from a movie, I was trying to determine if any ice had formed yet on Chickawaukie Lake. What I thought was a thin, opaque layer of ice, however, turned out to be the reflection of clouds on the water.

This afternoon looking out at the river, I saw two parallel lines running downstream, perhaps the twin wakes of a pair of ducks. Instead, they were the leading edges of ice forming outward from the opposing banks, soon to meet in the middle--a rare instance when parallel lines do intersect.

Soon growing ice
will meet in river's middle.
No more ducks.

December 25: Gifts for the cat

Like a large percentage of American pet owners, we get our pet a Christmas gift. Lucky Rooney received a squeaking catnip mouse today. She seemed to enjoy her new toy, flinging it around and batting it under furniture while making funny chirpy noises that a cat might make when it's tormenting its prey.

Later, Paul set up a remote control car I'd given him, a cool one that you operate via Bluetooth with your iPhone. The cat was fascinated by this, as well, though she couldn't decide whether to chase it or run from it. She'd tentatively bat it, then back off.

When combined with the pleasures of tissue, ribbon, and packaging from gifts, these diversions seemed to tire her out. We were still opening gifts when she escaped to the back of the couch for a nap, seeming to take literally the message on the nearby pillow.

Shortly after this shot, she was curled up asleep.

Simple pleasures:
watching the cat play
with a twist tie.