MORE MID-MARCH MUSINGS

March 17:

How unusual to seek the shade on a St. Patrick’s Day because the fore-noon sun is too warm. Morning fog hugged the valley until mid- , then slowly lifted and weakened, passing my hillside seat by 10 A.M. Now deep blue is the sky and quiet are the raucous crows. Peace penetrates, stillness prevails, as not a needle wavers nor does a single bird sing. A few chickadees, snow birds and even some nuthatches and blue-gray gnatcatchers do visit the suet nearby.

Now near noon, solar strength begins to agitate the atmosphere as gently sway the needled pines and still begins to move. In sunlit woods a tinge of green begins to appear in newly expanding leaf buds of honeysuckle and multi-flora rose.
These invaders have overtaken many woods and woodland edges becoming the dominate understory shrubs. Their success stems from the fact that their seeds are spread by bird poop and they are not eaten by Bambi and his ilk!

Now, about twenty minutes later, the air is once again very still. Perhaps a stasis between the uphill moving warmer air and the cooler downhill flowing woodland air has been temporally reached. In the summer this is very dramatic, as the sun
begins to set, cool air from the woods displaces the warmth of the day with its downhill flow.

March 18:
This morning the air is a bit more unstable as gentle breezes agitate pine needles and twigs, but the sky is cloudless blue again and warm the air remains. Sitting in the sun, listening to the brook babble from the sitting rock at “Sitabove Falls”
where early spring is again perfect. The brook flow is perfect and the sun sparkles in the splashing flow. Last year the brook was log jammed and cluttered with detritus from the extreme weather episodes of the previous few years.

The basin at the base of the falls is open again as in years past, its circular shape clear, speculation on its formation and as to why it does not fill with larger rocks that have clearly passed through the stream bed, as always, intrigues. Idle thoughts for idle times and warm March mornings are made for those.

Thinly and very so slowly the blue is fading from the north-northwest sky as tomorrow’s rainy weather begins to approach, 2’oclock in the afternoon. It seems odd looking forward to a rainy ay in March. Last year, even as May was winding down, in many places the ground was saturated and even too wet to even walk on.