Moon

Noooooooooooooooo! I drove home yesterday, and saw that Westmoreland had been hit by a strong thunderstorm and that there were shredded leaves and thick beds of hail all over the place. Then I saw my gardens. Shock and Awe. Decimation. The best garden of my life. Gone.

Beloved pumpkins, pulverized.

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I really like baby snakes. They are beautiful, not cute. Many baby snakes are almost exact miniatures of adults, which makes them exquisite. Other baby animals look cute because their heads and eyes are bigger in proportion to their bodies than the heads and eyes of adults. We're genetically programed to find that cute. S… Continue

Last week we caught a Gray-cheeked Thrush at Ashuelot River Park in Keene. It was in a net right by the side of the Ashuelot River, tucked among HIgh-bush Blueberries. It has been 30 years since I last saw one. That time it was walking along a trail at my high school. While many of the thrushes in this genus sing beautiful songs in our woods, this one stays quiet until it reaches its breeding grounds in the boreal spruce-fir forests of Canada.… Continue

This particular Louisiana Waterthrush makes life worth living every day of spring. After migrating all the way from the tropical rain forest, he sings like crazy. He sings like this from the moment he arrives until the rigors of child rearing wear him to a nub, just like they do for all of us at some point. His song is unmistakable; the first note sounds and we know that spring has arrived in full force. … Continue

I don't know why I keep on this dead things jag. I found this guy on Rt 9 this morning, 11.6 miles from the Vt border. I have deep affection for animals and the living world, and these dead ones that I have been finding lately are beautiful to me. They are moving but don't always make me sad. I'm glad there are more coyotes, but I wish we could… Continue