My man is becoming an ornitholigist. I have been informed of the presence of a yellow warbler down the road, of a yellow rumped warbler by the woodstack, that the bird Leto the panther-kitten decapitated and left on the porch was a white crowned sparrow, and that the flocks of hundreds of little birds that have taken over our yard and not-yet-pasture-or-garden are comprised of fox sparrows, Lapland longspurs, juncos, tree sparrows and more white crowned sparrows. Driving down to Denali the other weekend we saw 6 hawks, we think they were Harringers. And pulling on the Elliot with a load of wood this weekend, he swears he saw a falcon, he thinks it might have been a peregrine.
The bird book lives on the table, right next to the cookie sheet and bread pan full of wee pots of starts. They graduated from kitchen counter to sunny dining table earlier today when I notices little baby leaves beginning to unfurl, all white green in their newness.
I took my mat outside Saturday to practice in the chilly chilly wind and under the brightly shining sun. The thermometer read 44 degrees, but as I lay on my mat on the no-longer-snow-covered grass for short! savasana, I could feel the radiant warmth of the sun on my bare hands and feet and face. I did this practice next to the little spot of earth I dug up and planted as the beginning of my flower garden last year. On hands and knees, with my face close to the earth, I could see tiny little leaves beginning to show above the ground, their size a testament to energy conservation, and the bright green –so different from the sprouts from indoors – a testament to the vitality and hardiness of plants that come back year after year, whether re-seeding annuals or cold hardy perennials.
And now, the weatherman is calling for daytime temps in the 60's and nights that don't fall below forty by the end of the week. Bring on summer summer summertime!
