Sit Spot days 7 and 8

"frond" plant
Sat Mar 21 (Day 7). Out at 5 pm. Chill. Like winter bitter take cover. Light wind, pond slightly ruffled, sometimes half ruffled and half smooth. Sky baby blue at the horizon deepening to dark blue high up. Stunningly blue. Try using my peripheral vision. Patterns. Dead grass stalks scattered in my patch, one here one there, not clumped. Little maples 2 ft high under the beech stop at the edge of it. Because its more amenable to trees under there (grassland has a different makeup than treeland), or was this area bush hogged in the last few years? How long does it take for a seedling to grow 2 ft high under a beech tree? I look harder for tree seedling elsewhere, and suddenly there they are, like the one I noticed close to me before, finger length maple seedlings, orangy-brown, thin as can be but woody, every few feet all around. Beech buds all point upwards, reaching up from the branch. Quince twigs point out all around the branch, every few inches another one pointing in a different direction. No bugs today. I think my "frond" plant may be dying -- lack of water? Have to check again tomorrow.

Sun Mar 22 (Day 8), 3:30 PM. Fat cumulus clouds rolling across blue sky. North wind, gusting enough to blow a few leaves around. Big ripples on the pond. Earlier I identified 7 ring-necked ducks through the telescope. No hooded mergansers. Little bird activity, then a "check check" for a while of a blackbird giving way to a longer sound maybe a cowbird. And, barely audible, a long high pitch almost like a machine. 2 insects fly by. A few tiny green blades of grass emerging from the leaves, straight up. Per Tinker's observation I take a dead leaf off the beech but the base is dead, too. Then a stem from the other side: voila. Green. Almost every bud has a leftover stem which if I break off is green at the base. Tried not to break a whole bunch of them for the fun of it. The quince tree may grow twigs in all directions, but the ones on the bottom then die. Turned around for a change and contemplated the stone wall. The ground really slopes up towards it. Was it built that way or was it originally on a slope? The lilac bush has stringy bark. I know it's in the olive family and just looking at it reminds me of how tough that wood is, which I think of as an olive family trait. "frond" plant not dead but looking a bit stressed. took some photos.