Rambling - February 17, 2014

Since it was a bit after lunch, and since Benji was restless, I put him on a leash and off we went down the road and back on the muddy trail that goes by the pumping station. Mud and more mud (five inches of snow melt) and we're in a floodplain no less, so that I pulled the dog off the path and tracked through the snow and brown brush, but even that I couldn't stand. I'm too turned on to plants and especially poison ivy and I could see all the dormant little fingers of it reaching up through the dirt, not yet in leaf (not for a couple more months) but still irking my good sense to tramp right through it all. So, Benji and me turned around and walked through the abandoned field just north of the house. At one point, I saw a mess of deer tracks stamped in the mud with no real direction to follow. Further on by a drainage creek, I spied an Elder bush and remembered last year: I picked them. No I didn't. But yes I did, just one weekend morning after Susan had gone to Colorado, and I brewed up a fine tea and perhaps a soda pop even.The Elder cane was thick and tall, arching, choked with honeysuckle and some of it in leaf. Some night by the moon, or some evening when it's quiet, I'll bring my garden snips out to cut back the vines and the brambles, and tend to the canes. Then, perhaps I'll nab the healthy flowers for a cordial or wine and put it away for the wedding. I took the thought experiment further when we were on the bike path (in the same spot I had taken the flowers last year): this bramble must be cut out, and chop that dead wood. Here, the vine should be cut at the ground, but needent be unwrapped from the cane (a risk of damaging the buds). And, while I was caught up in all that, Benji noticed a hawk that had flown onto the power lines, and it had a kill in its claws. It sat tearing out little squigles of flesh and guts. The light was bad, so I could not make out if it was a red tailed or red shouldered hawk. I was close enough to see its face, though: stark eyes and a curved beak. I almost began to second guess myself and thought it was an owl. As I stood and watched, I began to notice lots of avian activity: a whole mess of robins were flitting from tree to tree and chattering, and a vulture made lazy circles overhead. Those birds, man - I've said it for years that the birds are the first creatures to herald the coming spring. (I think really the ephemeral wildflowers prepare much in advance of the birds. Think about Clatonia that sends up its narrow leaves even in the cold of December). In fact, just yesterday when I took Benji out on my lunch break, I heard a bright red cardinal in the hickory tree out back, yelling sex and terror to all potential mates and rivals (respectively). I swear, too, that I heard red winged blackbirds about a week ago, but it seems so unlikely to me, that I can't believe it. And, whoa the frogs - so now you can tell I'm getting excited - spring peepers sing from the mesic woodlots: a lone peeper just a week ago, and now a small chorus. With the weather to seventy degrees tomorrow, I expect a refreshing refrain from the little buggers.