A goose on the roof...

I love games.
Not so much the ones of turns, passed again and again around a board,
but those of thought, often labeled, “skill,”
that leave, more than talent-- laughter.

When our family was young, each day ended in games, a reward for that day’s efforts. Around the kitchen table or cross-legged on the living room floor, smiles and giggles… and then, up to bed!

Years later, still, the games are a part.
And though the players have changed,
the laughter from those early years is the same.

From behind your laughing eyes,
the child I remember.




One of our family favorites is Wise and Otherwise--a game of creatively completing half-written statements, little known proverbs, seldom heard words of wisdom.
I could not help but think of it when I found this goose on the roof.
I am sure you can finish the statement,
"A goose on the roof,..."

Snowdrops

Winter Walk, January 2009

This time, walking slowly,
though the path may be the same,
the walk a different one.

Winter Walk, January 2009

Mild temperatures, a far cry from the bitter cold just weeks ago that hurried me along these trails, tears running down my face, wet and warm over cheeks aching with the cold.

South-facing bank free of snow, January 2009

To find the place that caught the southern rays, even on that bitter day, free of the lightest covering of snow, beside the whitened path I had briskly walked, leading deeper into the brown woods.
Hoping that, today, the warmth on that bank would be just enough to coax the first flowers forward.

Steps down to Avey's Run, February 2009

The walkers on this day are many.
Quickly passing, some jogging—they bound up the bare wooden steps and race for home. Surely, the weeks of ice and windstorms have left them, too, starved of this outdoor playground.

Canada Geese on Powel Crosley Lake

From the edge of the lake, pairs of geese, swimming circles on the barely rippled surface, honk noisily at each walker’s passing. And ducks cluster and feed, tails up, in the shallow water.

American Beech leaves, Fagus grandifolia

Barely a breeze rustles the only leaves still clinging, faithfully, to their horizontal, slender branches—a beech. While the tall silver-gray forms beyond reach to blue and the lake glistens in afternoon sun.
I sat for a while beneath them here, and felt what sunshine they must feel--
on the first bright days like this.
Days to walk slowly and sit beside snowdrops.

First Snowdrops of Spring,
Galanthus sp.

All Alone

Empty Trails
Cincinnati Nature Center

The Frozen Falls on Avey's Run

It accentuates the absence of all else—the sound of a drip into water, round and clean, against the backdrop of stillness. While, throughout the darkened house, all other activities pause.
The silence then, so great, that it becomes, instead of absence, its own presence—a tangible thing.
Rarely unspoiled.

I ventured out into Friday’s frigid air and roamed the trails, alone. For these woods, so loved by so many on any other day, today, were barren.
And, beneath hat and hood, the stillness, very strange.

Several times I stopped and stood, puffing warm air into cupped hands and letting it rise to wash my face in steamy clouds. And found myself dressed in frosty lashes, squinting against the brightness of a cloudless January sky.

Watching Deer

In the distance, the call of a Barred Owl, this wintry day, his. And I imagined him fluffed against the cold somewhere, hidden against the brown and white of densely crossed winter branches, still.
While deer, frozen forms on a sheltered hillside, watched me pass.

Winter Light on Avey's Run

I hopped across the crossing stones frozen in the thick white stillness of the creek bed of Avey’s Run, the low light casting long shadows onto the steep hillsides on either side. All alone in the depths of these woods, I knelt in the middle on the cold and slippery surface. The waters that roar here each spring, now still.
To listen to the silence of the winter woods.
Drip, drip, dripping beneath me.

Ice

The Perfect Storm (SWF)

Flakes Falling

Yesterday brought the perfect quiet of a snow.
Quiet, for the immediate response of so many to retreat indoors and leave our usually busy world much less so.
And perfect in the fact that getting out into it was, on this day, my choice.

So, stepping out from beneath warm covers, into my favorite wool socks, I gathered my things—which no longer fit easily into one sack, but three! And set off for a day at the Nature Center—laptop, camera, binoculars, cell phone, water bottle and a hurriedly packed lunch piled beside me on the seat. Hiking boots, hints of both mittens and gloves protruding from the side pockets of a large, dark jacket, and a knit hat, carefully chosen to be large enough to hide a small cat, but, on this day, just an unruly ponytail, added to the picture of one arriving and intending to stay for more than just a few hours.
This would be my place for the day.

For the better part of it, I, too, stayed warm and working—at a small table in a windowed room, while a smoky fire reluctantly gave way to flames and soft, plinking music drifted in from the gift shop next door. But after taming my mid-day appetite with a peanut butter sandwich and a darling Clementine, I gathered my gear, resituated it on the seat of the car and wrapped myself for the cold.



The trails so often filled with walkers, were empty. The lake, steel gray, with six ducks near the shore. Through the trees, the path wound and rolled past empty benches, filled on warmer days.
And I pushed faster, hoping warmth would find its way to my chilling fingertips.



In the field beyond, the little log house so out of time with all else, on this day seemed timeless. In the openness, flakes poured down from a white sky above and swirled into gray haze before resting on the grasses. In the center of it all, I stood and looked up into the stream. And wondered if this quiet, this solitude we avoid, the times when all life’s distractions are left on the seat of our cars, isn’t the perfect balm for a 21st century life.

Autumn Field Grasses

Field under Snow

See more Skywatch here.

Watercolor Painting

I spent an afternoon walking the gallery
and stopped for a moment to sit
on a simple bench looking out over a wide space,
where I could watch the artists working
on watercolor paintings.

Powel Crosley Lake
Cincinnati Nature Center

click photos to enlarge

The Artists at work

Blue-eyed Mary

When winter's chill has scarce left earth
And April winds blow "Hey down derry!"
Comes gaily dancing down my hill
Sweet, laughing, Blue-eyed-mary.

She wears a dress of bronzy green
Draped round her light and airy;
She lifts the loveliest face I've seen-
Brave, tender, Blue-eyed-mary.

Her eyes shine like the azure sky,
Her step light as a fairy;
Her face, no crystal drift so white,
Dear, steadfast Blue-eyed-mary.

My hat is off to Bouncing Bet,
Gill-over-the-ground runs quite contrary,
Black-eyed-susan is my pet,
But I'm in love with Blue-eyed-mary.

by Gene Stratton-Porter

From Wikipedia
"Gene Stratton-Porter (August 17, 1863 - December 6, 1924) was an American author, amateur naturalist, wildlife photographer, and one of the earliest women to form a movie studio and production company. She wrote some of the best selling novels and well-received columns in magazines of the day.
Born Geneva Grace Stratton in Wabash County, Indiana, she married Charles D. Porter in 1886, and they had one daughter, Jeannette.
She became a wildlife photographer, specializing in the birds and moths in one of the last of the vanishing wetlands of the lower Great Lakes Basin. The Limberlost and Wildflower Woods of northeastern Indiana were the laboratory and inspiration for her stories, novels, essays, photography, and movies.
Although Stratton-Porter wanted to focus on nature books, it was her romantic novels that made her famous and generated the finances that allowed her to pursue her nature studies.

She was an accomplished author, artist and photographer and is generally considered to be one of the first female authors to promulgate public positions — in her case, conserving the Limberlost Swamp."

Hidden in plain sight

We celebrated the second Saturday in May, International Migratory Bird Day, with a bird walk at Cincinnati Nature Center, where 1000 acres of woods, streams, ponds and fields have come alive.
Leaving a bright, sunny cool morning behind, we walked a couple hours hours where the newly-leafed canopy already prevents much of the light from penetrating. With birdsong all around, we followed the trail, soft beneath our feet from 2-days' rain, weaving and winding into the deepest parts of Rowe Woods, already edged with dense growth. Patches of wild hyacinth, the faintest delicate blue, and spots of bright purple--a larkspur here and there, the only colors now. The wave of showy spring wildflowers has passed with little more than a leaf to tell of what had been.
Already the leaves hide them as their calls ring throughout these woods. And, aside from a swaying branch or a flash of wings as the birds dip through the understory, very few are seen.


An old beech, nothing more now than its silver trunk where woodpeckers have hammered, holds new treasure, though. At the very top, perfectly camouflaged in black and brown against the decaying wood, a large owlet--this spring's Great Horned, soon to fledge. Behind feathers the exact texture of his wood home, his dark features follow us as we pass.


In the fields, the blackberries and grasses are knee high. From every fencepost and treetop, a song rings out--everywhere, the activity is undeniable.


Migrants seen or heard this morning:
Acadian Flycatcher
Barn Swallow
Chimney Swift
Eastern Bluebird
Eastern Wood-Peewee
Great Crested Flycatcher
Indigo Bunting
Louisiana Waterthrush
Northern Parula
Scarlet Tanager
Wood Thrush

Indulgent day

Three goals for this weekend:
1. read my book (I hardly ever bring a book home--this one I'm looking forward to: Annie Dillard's, The Maytrees.)
2. walk at Cincinnati Nature Center--it's not too far from home, but far enough that I have to plan to go there--it doesn't just happen.
3. stake out the mysterious bird that is calling from my very leafy woods.


I got an early start this morning-- headed over to CNC, The Cincinnati Nature Center, a reward for my busy week. I wanted to be able to linger and enjoy--and I did.

As early as I was, and with most others looking forward to sleeping "in" on Saturday, I had the trails to myself. Nothing but quiet woods and glossy lake views.
I left my camera in the car for my first circuit, Edge Trail--not really sure I wanted to be fussing with pictures, when I could just be basking. And, besides, what if I didn't see anything? So, no pictures for you of Orioles, Indigo Buntings, Common Yellow-throats or the most humongous snapping turtle I've ever seen. I wished I'd bought the turtle food they sell--he sure looked hungry, and would've been just as happy to take my hand off, if I'd offered it!
But I swung back for a water break before heading across to the fields and grabbed the camera, just in case--good thing.

The blackberries are loaded with fruit this year--and it looks like we're about 2-3 weeks ahead of usual for ripening. I'd grown up with raspberries in the northeast, but actually now prefer blackberries--luckily for me, they grow everywhere down here! The fruit is fleshier--but the plants are woody and thornier--beware! (Oh, and watch out for snakes, too!)

At first I thought I'd found an owl perch, this trunk looked so whitewashed.

But it's dried pitch--woodpeckers have been very busy.


And the perfect ending to the perfect morning...



Now, if you'll excuse me, I left the Maytrees on page 61.