Still-bare choirs

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I have to imagine there are buds on the trees here somewhere. I know that there are three valiant purple crocuses on Rogers Street. Still, the mornings are getting noisier. A half hour before dawn the crows call, then the seagulls, and then the lay-a-beds, the house sparrows, who chirp quietly at first then more raucously as the sun comes up. They've been romantically inclined as well, shaking their feathers at each other when they land on the railing.

In New York last week, though, I saw honest to goodness daffodils (not just cut ones like here at Shaw's) and there were lots of spring singers in Central Park, the red winged blackbird (who is here, too, though I haven't seen him yet), lots of house finches, but more it was the sense that spring was really about to happen. Here it was warm for a few days then very cold and windy. And of course the sidewalks here are much more bare. There were lots of humans in NYC, Central Park included. The city is full of dog nuts, and I saw many canines dressed in designer wear, many of them in spring pastels.

News from the little world

Although this is last spring's picture this is not a memorial. Yesterday as I was carrying the laundry upstairs I chanced to look behind me and there, following, was Harry. The real Harry not the marauder who has taken over Harry's tree. I said, "Harry?" and she came right up to me. "Hold on!" I went into the house, grabbed a walnut, went back out and called again,"Harry!" Up she came. So I rolled the walnut along the deck (though there was all of two feet maybe between us), she picked it up, turned it over and over, and sat there for a moment with the walnut in her mouth. I said, "Take it downstairs," and off she went. I watched from the deck and indeed she has moved to another yard two or three houses over. It had been a coup. Or perhaps as David suggested she found a better apartment. This morning she was here before sunrise and had a welcome home breakfast of two walnuts and two almonds which just about cleaned me out. That and the early visit of a Mourning Dove made for nice cold Sunday morning.

Is it sprung?

Well, you can't tell by looking out the window here. The tree where Harry has her nest is of course still bare branched and now due to March winds there is a bit of debris hanging off one of them, i.e., a white plastic bag from Shaws. I wish I could shimmy and then I'd shimmy up that tree and grab it. If Harry had a dog's willingness to please as well as her squirrel agility we might manage it. David says a good storm will take of it.

Sad to say I've discovered this is not Harry the Squirrel I knew last year. She would run up to me for her walnut and then take it downstairs from our deck to bury it in the neighbor's yard. This imposter loves walnuts and is living in Harry's old nest but she's somebody else entirely. If I call "Harry!" she runs behind the flower pot. I roll the walnut and as soon as she hears me go back in the house she runs out and grabs it. Sigh. Was it a hawk, perhaps the hawk that landed on the deck railing a few weeks ago? Was it this squirrel? I find that hard to believe. More likely it was either Harry herself deciding to move on or one of our nut case drivers doing 40 in front of the house. I guess even a car doing the speed limit would be deadly.

But today is a day to be joyful! We have our health (sort of); we have Baby Cat whose birthday this is (she's 6) and we have the VERNAL EQUINOX. The sun is up and shining on the bare branches of the faux Harry's tree. And there's a black lab running back and forth in Burnham field. Early yesterday morning in the gray wet light I saw the seagulls walking across the field all at the same time, all in the same direction. Perhaps they were heading for the sub shop or perhaps St. Ann's Church whose spire shines silver at all times of year.

Great Reads

There has been one good thing to come out of this endless winter. After several months of being unable to concentrate (for a variety of reasons) I've suddenly been able to read again (as in, read a book all the way through). This not only is thrilling for me but for our interlibrary loan librarian who I imagine got really tired of processing all my requests. I'd order up several books, try them out, not be able to read them, and then return them almost as quickly as I'd borrowed them, all unread, piles of them.

Then I came upon "The White Tiger" and everything changed. The novel won this year's Booker prize so of course I was so grateful I decided to see if other Booker Prizers would be as riveting. First, though, I read the first Rex Stout Nero Wolfe mystery,"Fer De Lance;" "The Killing Time," an Ellen Hart mystery; the wonderful young adult novel (also a prize winner), "Little Brother," by Cory Doctorow; and then and then the riveting 1985 Booker Prize Winner, "The Bone People," by Keri Hulme. This book makes my all-time top five list. I've now decided to visit New Zealand. Which is unsettling perhaps to one of the other big readers in the house. Not David who wouldn't come to New Zealand anyway because he worries about the earthquakes, but Pierre who feels more allegiance to another country in that part of the world.

Here he is rereading his favorite book, "The Little Red Hen." He also owns "The Pokey Little Puppy" which was a big favorite of mine lo those many years ago.

March 11, 2009

It's raining in Gloucester after having had the nerve to snow on Monday. This was a moment for David and me to look out the back door, watch the swirling white, and say, "Can you believe this?" Sunday it had been 60 degrees. I discovered this blog spot because I swept over here to read Susan Shie's new blog. She is one of my top favorite artists and her website, (www.turtlemoon.com) has cheered me considerably over the years especially in the dead of winter. Winter has not died here yet, but the birds are singing. Harry the squirrel started building her nest again in the tree in the back whose "head " was lopped off years ago by a local tree hating nut. The tree has had her revenge in a way since she once again leafs out beautifully. And she offers a penthouse home to Harry who I watch run back and forth with leaves in her mouth. She leaps onto the trunk of the tree and then into the chasm at the top. A few days ago she stopped by the deck, grabbed the empty white seed sock that had once held food for our House Sparrows, took it off its nail, stuffed it in her mouth and ran off with it. Maybe she'll stuff it with fluff for a pillow for the nest.