An Expression of the Season

On February 28 and March 1 we had another substantial snowstorm, and afterward brilliant blue skies and calm winds and dazzling celestial displays in the night. I bundle up and take my walks, frequently stopped in my tracks by the impact of my surroundings: awe and joy at the perfection of form and texture, light and shadow, snatches of birdsong and the silences in between.

The east garden, its row of asparagus and the sweet potato mounds:

Squeaky Tree:

Lobster Tail Trail:

Toward the north fence line and the draws with coyote dens:

Big Bucket Trail:

The ancient hickories at Turkey Holler:

The Gorge:

The Grand Traverse:

Approaching Tire Shrine:

The Ford:

Hidden Meadow:

Across the top of the Trap Range:

 

Below the dam:

Rabbits congregate beneath this maple near the burn barrel:

The bridge-to-be, and across the dam, the pond and the terraced observatory field:

It Gives One Paws

Charismatic megafauna. That's what ecologists call those wild creatures at the top of their food chains. (As biologist Lewis Thomas notes in The Lives of a Cell – highly recommended, by the way – life is a game of 'now I eat you'.) And it's a continual wonder that these turkeys and coyotes and bobcats and horned owls and deer and falcons and buzzards exist here, such large animals, so close and yet so seldom seen. And still more I wonder that they find enough to eat and thrive; and about so much else that must perish to nourish them.

Wild turkey:

Bobcat:

Bobcat spray:

Coyote:

Snow!

We have had several beautiful, substantial snowfalls this winter, only one of which could properly be called a blizzard. The rest have occurred in near calm winds, producing blankets and pillows of downy white. This storm occurred on January 30, and I took my walkabout the following day.

The coyote, rabbit, and deer are the early risers, always leaving their marks before I get out.

The shooting range, a very wet little field that I would like to plant to blueberries. Yes, we use steel shot, not lead, for trap shooting.

Hidden Meadow, one of my favorite views on the property. The juniper in the foreground is a favorite shelter from the weather for coyote and, in the absence of coyote, pheasant and rabbit.

The smaller burrowing creatures, voles and mice, mound the snow as they pass among the underlying grasses, sometimes leaving elaborate branched patterns as they move back and forth.

And down to the creek at the under-construction ford, just upstream of the road culvert and wier.

Stepping stones at the ford, looking upstream.

One of the woodland avatars. It probably has a name, but Donna has not revealed it.

  

Good old Eye Chair.

Adjacent to Squeaky Tree, near the upstream border of the property, with cattle pasture beyond.

The Grand Traverse between Joy Stone and Little Bucket, overlooking The Gorge.