This morning, this evening

This morning ...

Flocked trees, morning sun spotlighting the top of the hill, glistening a rich vanilla. The pond is still frozen, but the surface is wet through. Our pair of Canada geese are sitting on top of the ice, resting, laying claim to it like explorers of old. They're itching to nest and on the squawky lookout for hovering ravens, weasels and minks, and other Canadians.

We had a slight fire in our stove pipe yesterday, comes from not having been very diligent about cleaning it and the flue out this winter, every month had been suggested. We shut off the oxygen to the fire and, after the pipes cooled, we disconnected them and discovered that the fire had sizzled off most of the offending creosote, turned it to gray flakey ash. Lucky. The stove's all spic and span and safe now, and a fine warm flame from within has the kitchen in its embrace.

This evening ...

A big smile of clear water scimitars from the still frozen part of the pond. The Canadian geese have just settled down after staging their version of an Alfred Hitchcock attack on Richard. Of course, he was in a big orange kayak attempting to crack up more of the ice around the pond and was closing in on their nesting area. He knew the chance he was taking and laughed in the face of danger as the male, quite courageously, went after him. Richard's gone now, in the house getting ready to drive across the state for a 6:30 meeting, and I'm about to go on a 4 mile hike. The wind has picked up the geese's earlier fuss and is swaying the big pines into a hypnotized hula and sending gusts of grounded brown leaves skyward in a scatter of false life, back from the dead, one more flight through the air before compost.

Such a blue, blue sky, so pure, innocent, clear. Almost every trace of the morning snow is gone. But it'll be cold tonight. Into the 20's. Maybe that's what the wind's Paul Revere-ing about. Unseasonably warm to unseasonably cold. Unseasonable.