Halfway Through the Year
The middle of May is, in the part of the country I live in, the rough midpoint of the year by feel if not by calendar. Spring is fully in. The leaves have come out. The migrants are mostly through. The summer birds are...
Almanac
Seasonal entries that track the year’s slow rhythms — arrivals, bloom dates, the small thresholds that mark winter into spring into summer. A running record of what the yard and the calendar do together, kept across years.
March’s Two Faces
March in the upper latitudes has two faces and it shows them both every year, sometimes in the same week. Early March is still winter. Late March is something else, not quite spring, but not winter anymore in any honest accounting. The shift happens...
The In-Between Weeks
There is a stretch of February that does not belong to anything. Winter has used up most of what it has to say. The novelty of the snow is long gone, the holidays are far enough back that nobody talks about them anymore, and...
A Year on the Same Patch
The first morning of the new year I sat in the same chair by the same window with the same mug and looked out at the same yard I have been looking at for fourteen years. The juncos were on the platform. The cardinal...
Counting What Stayed for December
December is a month for counting. The light is short, the yard is mostly bare, and the things that are still here have all earned their place by staying. I have been keeping a rough tally this week of what is left in the...