Moss

Sit spot day 17

Tues Mar 31 (Day 17). 8 PM. End of dusk. A star, low in the east, twinkling white and then orange, back and forth. 3 more stars, one above the other, in a curve that makes me think of a pick. After a while, some more above them and then I realize it's the Big Dipper, standing on its end. So there, in the maple, is the North Star. I try to fix it to remember in daylight, between two branches. High, over my right shoulder, the moon, a fat crescent. Stars. A steady gentle wind on my right cheek: from the south. This morning in the field it was strong from the North. Always changing around here. The pond is dark on the southern half, then rippled. A goose squawk or two. Steady peepers. It's in the low 40s, and the pure higher tones are mostly absent. Mostly a steady high patter, lots of them, different than last night. I only hear the wood frogs (Charlie was right; 'quackers' are wood frogs) a few times. A rustling like insect wings; then I identify as the sound one of the beech leaves makes in the wind. No sign of the ground moving, but then I have trouble sitting still long as I keep turning to see more stars. I have a moon shadow. I stand and face the moon and see how it's surrounded by 4 stars in a diamond, and to the right are 3 more in a right angle, and to the left 3 -- that's Orion's belt. It's a whole other world, and immense, and full of geometry, and I want to be a mage, not a scientist.

Sit Spot days 14 to 16

Sat Mar 28 (Day 14). 5:30 PM. Hazy cloud coverage, faint blue sky at the zenith. No shadows. Pond has enough ripples over much of it to reflect the white light from the sky. Wind is slight -- grass stalks moving but rarely a leaf. Earlier it was gusting a little from the south. Cloud of small flying creatures rising and falling above my head -- when I stand up I'm in their midst but sitting down occasionally two drift into sight. They don't land. The line of daffodils has gotten taller. Examining the ground I find that within a fingerlength either way there are 7 vines running north south, and 4 running east west. Ranging from about 2mm to 7 mm thick. There's a wisteria seedpod, or rather half of one, empty of its two seeds, dried out, at my feet. Its wonderfully velvety on the outer shell. Twisted nicely -- does it twist itself or twist as it dries out, to spring the seeds? White inner layer. Pointed at either end. There are stands of low greens under the beech, and I saw a small furry 2 inch set of leaves which looked like the beginning of some mullein. Once I settle in I want to sit and sit and not think too much, just listen to the totality of it all.


Sun Mar 29 (Day 15) 9:30 PM. Dark. Not totally. Two spots of greenish light on the Eastern Horizon, and another glow from the North. Raining lightly. Rained off and on all day, rarely heavily. Dripping from the trees -- there are no leaves, so the branches must collect and drip water. Mist against my face. Peepers. I find three sounds: from our pond, the soprano steady cheep that always sounds like jewels to me, like light through gems. Same direction, a longer, slightly lower, more occasional musical note. The former are maybe 1/4 second over and over, the later maybe 1 second then 3 sec pause then again, and there are only a few. To the right, the more hillocky pond across the road, steady short sounds more like a plucked rubber band or a duck's quack. Lots of them. When a car goes by these shut up for a bit. The sky is flashing every 20 or 30 seconds, in all directions, faintly perceptible so it might be my eyes but I don't think so. Mysterious, no sound of thunder, must be distant or very high. It's cold. The trees seem solemn, or ominous, in their height and the sense that they are used to wet cold nights, it is their world half the time and we don't even see it as a rule.


Mon Mar 30 (Day 16) 4 PM. Rain coming to an end, dryer west wind starting to blow, but still cloudy. Wind sounding in the trees. Along with a few blackbird checks and some complaints from the red-bellied woodpecker, directed at the blackbird I think. A pile of fresh scat, round slightly flattened balls about 1/4 inch across, a pile of maybe 15, a new version of what I've noticed before, looks like straw in them but I'm not picking these apart right now. I leave my glasses on for a change and contemplate the high pine tree across the way, with it's flat tiers of greenery. And all along the far shore the bushes are dense, many with a rounded shape. The pond has a pretty strong ripple pattern running to the SE, and again it looks like pollen along the far edge. But the hardwoods aren't flowering, nor the juniper that I've looked at. Maybe the pines? The patch of greenery under the beech seems to be daffodils. They're already sending up flower heads. None of the plants right where I sit seem much bigger. The buds on the quince have maybe just a touch more fuzz at the tips. And the dead leaves, some are wet and turning black, others quite close to white. The variation is striking, but I don't really know what the pattern means.

Sit Spot day 13

Fri Mar 27 (Day 13). 7 PM, dusk. Today I almost skipped it. But I went down for a bit. I think we hit 60 degrees today and it was sunny, and earlier in the field I thought the grass had sent out an awful lot of 4 inch spikes. But my ground looked much the same, the leaves had pretty much dried out from last nights rain (only a quarter inch) and the few growing things looked much the same size. The pond was dark black and smooth. The big news, which I was already starting to forget, is that the peepers have started. Last night I heard one before I went to sleep, off and on, and now there are too many to count. There's more than one song or sound. The blackbirds were out and about again -- I guess they dont like the rain. A pair of ducks flew overhead just like last night. Some other birds came and went on the pond. Everything smelled good, like wet damp evening smell. The grass was a lovely shade of yellow, then faded with the light. The evergreens across the pond looked like they were solemnly presiding over the end of their winter tenure, reflected in the water. Could still hear the streams. Saw two bugs fly by, one like a black fly size, one bigger. Then I heard a woodcock! Thanks to deerwoman I've learned what they sound like. Right there in the field at the other end. And for the first time I heard ever so slight rustlings in the leaves near me, maybe 6 or 8 feet away. Slight, like an insect? Finally my back got tired and I thought I'd go, so I leaned over about a foot above the ground in front of me to take a last look at things, and then the ground moved next to my foot. The whole carpet of leaves/grass etc just up and moved like a blanket does when someone's under it. I froze and considered whether I wanted some creature to emerge and find my face a foot from it's. Then slowly sat up a bit. It moved around a bit, no hurry, a rising here and there, moving slowly underneath the carpet and in about 5 minutes ending up a foot away from me. Something else sounded like it was engaged in a similar activity about 4 feet off my left shoulder. Probably not a snake unless that was it's head going up and down. I never saw anything directly, and slipped away hoping I was stepping too hard on anyone.

Sit Spot day 12

That's the mossy lilac, a few days ago.

Thurs Mar 26 (Day 12). 6:45 PM, almost sunset. There's 1/4 of a hickory nut outer shell right in front of my spot. How can I go 12 days before I notice something that big? Today it clouded up and started sprinkling. What a relief to find the local dead leaves nicely plastered down and lying still. Just the stalks of grass and the tips of the hemlock branches were moving in a light breeze from the south. I can hear the water in the local streams when the wind calms down, I think mostly the far side of the neighbours' swamp where it narrows and runs through a break in the old beaver dam there. I noticed a wisteria gone traveling. Most of them come up 6 or 8 inches, with 2 - 4 joints where the buds are and there they are, sturdy. But now and again one takes off, this one had a thinner stem running six feet off in search of? East, towards the dominant sun source. I saw one next to the beech tree that was classic: straight as an arrow, close to the ground, no beginning or end in sight. I see some virginia creeper vines along the ground too. Anyway this evening I see more birds, a sparrow actually revealed itself for a few minutes, hopping on the maple tree, and a big hawk or owl flew by. Usually these turn out to be the red-tailed, but this one seemed more white/tan/light brown than I ever think of those. Round body, seen from behind, steady wing beat. Ducks came and went: why do they make that deet deet deet high pitched sound they make when they fly? A big bird flew across the pond and landed in a tree, I wondered if it was the ring-necked duck which I read likes to roost in trees. The blackbirds were mostly quiet for a change. A goose was standing on top of the beaver lodge with its partner nearby. Later another group arrived and landed further up the pond, with much conversation, and then the first two took off and flew half way up towards the other group and landed again. They might be claiming territory. In other years the top of the lodge has been a nesting place. My mind wandered away, then came back and settled for a bit into the deep peacefulness of the rainy present. I remembered being out in heavy, warm rain with my last dog in Prospect Park, in Brooklyn, NY -- is it really that long since I purposefully stayed out in the rain? No bugs. Pond almost smooth again, back to its black self. No rings made by fish or insects. The diving ducks must be eating some fish though. I worry I'll get bored coming to the same place, even facing the same direction, over and over, but this time I want to stay for a long time.

Sit spot 9 and 10

Mon Mar 23 (Day 9) 4:30 PM. Wind wind wind. Northwest and blowing and blowing. No white caps on the pond though, and only a few leaves skipping about. Low 30s, cold, sunny, a few cumulus clouds. The sun is beautiful; the maple trunks half in light, half in dark. One maple branchlet has a chunk of white ice hanging from it. Bobbing in the wind. A pair of ducks drifts slowly down the pond, carried by the wind. I go stand with my back to the beech, which beckons me to climb it. Another day. There are many more beech nut husks right here at the base, and nuts, too. It's been 2 years since it masted, I wonder if those nuts have anything in them. A different leaf sprouting on the ground: roundish with toothed edges. Might be a violet, but it looks rounder to me. Just one. A pair of turkey vultures over the pond. One or two blackbirds. The beech branches are all wrinkly at their base, where they emerge from the trunk, like a tightly wrinkled bit of shirt sleeve.

Tues Mar 24 (Day 10) 1:30 PM. Today the first thing I did was go and hug the beech tree. It's very huggable, just the size of a big round person. Then I sat with my back to the wind, facing SSE for a change, towards the road, the younger maple, hickories, and hemlock. I haven't mentioned the hemlock. It's in the SE corner of my quadrangle, fairly young, about 25 ft high, thick with branches. The wind was so strong today the upper ones were standing up nearly straight against the trunk. Looks almost painful to me they were blowing so hard. But I guess it's not like the deciduous ones, more flexible. I just feel bad whenever I look at it because all the hemlocks around here have woolly agelid, and are probably doomed. I've seen the corpses. This one's near where I buried my last dog, sort of standing watch, so that adds to the pathos. Actually it's pretty healthy at this point, with branches practically down to the ground. Along the Southern boundary wall there's a baby pine (3 ft high) and a baby hemlock (I think, have to look closer. 2 ft high). And then at the SW corner there's "grandfather" -- the oldest maple around that is in its final years, with some long thick dead trunks and some live ones. I love the way the old maples had sent out long branches over a foot thick which run 10 or 15 feet off the ground and straight out like 40 feet, an image of strength. The grandfather tree has good holes for squirrels and places for woodpeckers to eat. The wind today blew and blew again, more variable though, sometimes coming strong from the NE, sometimes NW, quiet a bit, then gusts so noisy with leaves flying in all directions I felt like ducking from some anticipated broken branch hurtling by. Nerves of steel, as they say. Meanwhile I looked at plant x... "frond" which isn't really a good name, I've got to look through newcomb's flower book at leaves. It has quite variable leaves, some are lobed practically to a split, others evenly toothed, all with that stem with the trough running down the middle of it. I want to taste it, but having seen poison hemlock at the BBG, which looks like a tasty relative of parsley or celery, I'm not doing any random taste tests. I saw a new leaf too, an inch long (like much at this season), oval, with little notches, 3 on each side, like little slits. No birds today except a glimpse of one, maybe a robin, and a few chirps behind me. There's a ridge of ground, a gentle hump, running parallel to the south wall about 10 ft in, I bet my father used to dump yard waste there. I remember coming into this quadrangle with him years ago, wheelbarrows of leaves and such. Always a plan, and me always following him. Ghosts.

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.

Sit Spot days 4 - 6

Wed Mar 18 (day 4): Out at 12:30 pm. Wind! mostly from the south / south west. The gust pick up leaves and chase them along. You can hear it in the trees constantly, and the beech is making the shir /shir noise it makes -- one of its leaves rattles in a very particular way. The pond is patterned. A few mergansers. No bird calls, then 4 blackbirds go by north to south, fairly high, chattering. Two seem to be interacting in some way, fighting? Big news: a fly. The size of a house fly with the most beautiful iridescent green body and head. Quite stunning. Field grass is that light yellow brown beige. Across the pond the border is grass or reeds, light brown now, 2 or 3 ft high, in hummocks, maybe 15 ft deep, giving way to shrubs interspersed with trees. Close up my 'frond' plant: seems to be basal leaves growing in whorls from points along a trailing stem. There's a patch of it a few feet away that's a foot or two across, still mostly reddish purple 'dead'? leaves from another season. Maybe dormant's the word. Each leaf ( or stem ) has its set of 10 or so unevenly lobed leaves, about 1/2 in across, thin, hand shaped ie blunt bottom and lobes point a bit up. well I"ll take a picture one of these days. Then the purple green opposite leaved plant, the bedstraw, and leftovers from last year. Probably goldenseal stems. round, dead, points where the leaves were traveling up the stem in a sort of spiral, remnants of white fluff probably seeds and the bases of the flowers with 2-3 mm points in a circle, more than six I'd say. Flowers in a panicle on one side of the stem. Another flower head, six calyx points left on each tiny flower, again, traces of white fluff, also one side of the stem empty, thinner stalk. Grass: soft, clumped. Grass seed head, like a little version of wheat. Sky blue but through a hazy cloud cover, near the horizon in all directions it shades towards grey. No real sense of incoming storm at this point. Been a week since it rained.

Thurs Mar 19 (Day 5): Out at 5:30 pm. On the way checked the temp: 43 and the rain gauge: .1. A trace. The pond was dead calm, every tree on the far side perfectly reflected. Saw one circle as from a fish or insect. Several hooded mergansers were active, spending as much time under water as above. Far trees have green / gray trunks, probably various lichens. Underneath, leaves, some open woods. RWB calling back and forth, long call, then a while on single chirps, very melodious. Flock of blackbirds in the distance. 3 geese come in for a landing, wing tips down, then feet out, all 3 hit exactly at the same time. Sky clearing in the North. Tiny white spider on the leaves. Some leaves black with water, others dry. Beech tree zig zags a little with the buds. Spot on lower branch has bark peeling away, around an old wound. Quince tree twigs end looking like they've been broken off, with a leaf scar just below that and a little tiny bud that is just slightly white and fuzzy on the tip right now: will the flower emerge there? The beech is like a large ad for terminal buds. How many of the little twigs with a bud on the end will turn into branches? A bug like a black fly size hit my cheek and went its way. White pickup truck did a screeching start back towards Redhead HIll Rd, then raced by -- feels like part of the local fauna.

Fri Mar 20 (Day 6. Equinox). Went out a little after 7 am. 28 degrees and calm, sun rising through some bands of clouds, blue sky overhead with some cirrus clouds. Blackbird tribe is busy busy. Took the binoculars. Watched a few red-wings puff up and deflate as they sing. They have about 4 or 5 regular calls, the basic chirp, the melodious chirp, the classic, the classic in a slightly different key, and a couple of others. I located one and then after I stopped watching noticed about 5 take off from the same tree that I hadn't noticed. Saw a blue jay! And after following it with the binoc's across the pond saw a couple of others over there. Something called out with a beautiful two tone; I thought it was the jay but I don't find that call at my online bird call site. Maple beautiful in the morning sun. It's covered with the stems of last year's seeds, last year it masted, a huge crop. Pond smooth and dark. Across the field a tree with maybe 10 blackbirds in it. Still contemplating the humps of my section: near the end of the wall behind me, to the North, is where the big sugar maple used to be, and there's a broad hump there, but I cant believe that's all from the old roots. Nice green moss patch at the base of the lilac bush where it divides into two 6" trunks. It leans heavily towards the wall, as though its decided its best solar bet is to climb the wall and get to the Western sun, away from the beech. So its base is closer to horizontal and the moss has bedded there happily.

Sit spot days 2 and 3

Tues Mar 17: Out sitting at 3:30 pm or so, the sun and afternoon laziness was the most notable thing, like a summers afternoon only it was about 45 degrees out. Blackbird and woodpecker. Blue sky, slight breeze. The beech buds looked light against the sky -- were they like that before? Later I got up and looked more closely. The beech has those sets of little rings round the twigs, probably indicating a years growth. Some are quite close -- 1/2 inch, some 3 or 4 inches apart. The buds stick out on individual twigs. The quince throws off little twigs off it's main branchlets too. But more buds per twig. It doesn't have the rings. I used to know what those are called but forget now. The trees under the beech are small sugar maples, from what I can tell (buds look like ice cream cones). I'd read that maples grow in the shade, waiting for their big break -- these will have to wait a long time! Saw another little black spider (or the same one) in the leaves. Turkey vulture -- been seeing those for a few days now. Still never any birds in the beech. Maybe the maple is too tasty and high; at one point there were two woodpeckers on it pecking at the same time. Mostly though it was just the deep silence of the afternoon sun.

Mon Mar 16: Different dead leaves are different shades of brown. There's one, about 2 in x 3/4 in, smooth edges, pale as can be. No oak leaves. Beautiful beech leaves, with the pleasing gently wavy edges. The beech branches reach far out, nearly horizontal at the bottom, and then further up the tree much closer to vertical. It has those big buds that stick out from the twigs. The maple trees are somehow less linear in their approach. The quince bears the marks of my pruning, and one branch is thoroughly chewed, presumably by Meera when I tied her there. I hadn't seen that before. The carpenter's vehicle has left deep tracks in the mud, showing a deep brown mud. The ground feels rich and dark beneath me, not ledgy at all. The air is humid, not very cold but not at all warm. You can see blue sky through the clouds, but they're pretty thick, with interesting patterns. The ponds water is dead calm, no trace of fish or insects yet, very black. I can just smell the mud and dead leaves around. Funny wisteria forest I sit in. Few birds. Sunset on a cloudy day. But twice flotillas of geese arrive, honking loudly and receiving answering honks from those already on the pond. 3 ducks go by. Could I tell a wood duck from a mallard in flight, at a distance, with practice? Yesterday we got out the telescope and identified wood ducks, beautiful with red lines on their head and white lines and blue on the back, like an Asian painting of some sort. And the small little divers were / are hooded mergansers. The female h.m. has a great brownish tuft that she raises, then lowers and dives again. And the beaver has appeared, leisurely making his/her way around the pond last night and tonight.

Sit spot

I made my way recently to the Wilderness Awareness School web site where I found a forum for people practicing "Sit Spots". I had read about this in one of Tom Brown's book, when as a child his mentor sent him out to sit in the same spot every day for a long time, taking notice of everything and learning the flora and fauna that presented itself. Anyway someone in this forum posted a 30-day Sit Spot challenge, starting today, so I'm taking them up on it. I'm posting there, but I think I'll repeat the posts here, not that they're particularly linear and they're bound to get repetitive, but it's an enjoyable practice all the same.

I've been sitting for a few days already, off and on. I'm sitting near a 30 yr old beech tree in a quadrangle formed by a couple of stone walls about 60 feet long each, to the south and west, to the east is our lower driveway (dirt) followed by the hay field (about 8 acres) and then the beaver pond (about 4 acres), both of which stretch off to the North and are bordered on the south by a road with light traffic. To the North is the quince tree, a big old sugar maple, more hay field, woods. Our house is 100 or 150 ft away to the NW. On a bigger scale there are 5 or 10 old 100-150 acre farms near me, several large swamps and beaver ponds, and some more suburban housing filling in here and there -- 90 houses within a mile of me. We are at the swampy head waters of what will eventually become the Quinebaug river, then the Thames and reach the sea at New London. The land is old and stony. In the mid 1800s it was fully farmed -- no wildlife left and hardly any woods. Through the age of oil the forest has been regrowing and the wildlife filling in steadily, the latest arrivals are the bears and mountain lions, coyotes arrived maybe 15 or 20 yrs ago.

notes so far...

Sun Mar 15: Out around 9 am for a change. Sun much further "south" than I would think, so where is east exactly? We're close to the solstice. Daylight savings time, so 2 hrs after sunrise. low 30s, little wind, not cold. Lots of water birds. Ice left on pond, some white, near the road 2 chunks one maybe 70 ft x 40 ft, the other smaller. N of the pond 100 x 40 ft anchored this morning to the shore with thin ice from last night. Mallards, geese, something else. Something small that I almost thought was a fish jumping it surfaced and dove again so quickly. Small round, blackish. No binoc's so no details really. Funny call which probably comes from it. 3 red-winged blackbirds calling back and forth, 2 near the pond, one across the road. Cardinal way up on top of the maple making several different calls, all melodious. Stretches itself. Heard the chickadee's phoebe sound for the first time. blackbird chirping too. red-bellied woodpecker. one very green blade of grass. dead maple leaf with about 15 little points or stalks sticking out of what was the top, like a deformity caused by a virus or something. another one with one or two. counted about 20 wisteria shoots if I looked in a line and did a swath about 6 inches wide. frond plants a little grown. young plantain? air fresh, slight smell of mud and dead leaves. still contemplating the rises and falls and pits of the patch I'm in, it's not smooth at all. did Daddy dump stuff over here? or are there rocks under there? I find it comforting, this lack of smoothness. But familiarity is coming over me, the patch is becoming comforting in its familiarity. Saw a spider web in the distance -- are they building already? (later. diving bird might be a bufflehead. need a telescope)

Fri Mar 13: Fat robin sited on my way down, later chirping in the maple? 2 ducks male and female mallards waddle across the ice and back into the water. pond really low, chairs showing, mud exposed between island and lodge. saw goose this AM on lodge. dark big bird flies over, hawk? look at dead leaves some more: awfully small maple leaf. 3 inch long, 1 inch wide leaf. very pale beech leaf? most are nuttier brown. found my lost beech nut husk, or another one. notice ground smells of mud / spring. slightly. sun, blue sky, a few small clouds, cold (around 38), slight nw wind. lots of leaves/sticks along the 'ridge' near the quince. steady rw blbd calls, 2 going back and forth. 5 pm. shadow lengthening. maple shadow reaches pond. 1,2, 3 herbs growing? say 'frond', bedstraw, and the purply soft one, deep green, wilty leaves about 1/4 inch across, opposite, maybe hairy, look thicker than the others. was the bedstraw blooming? or another set of leaves? quince stick broken, very green at the place where the bark broke.

Thurs Mar 12: A little round object like a bit of dog kibble: turd of some sort. Some more in a pile further away. Tan: old? Specks in it. Ice is melting, a small bird disappears under the water, pops back up, disappears again. Not a merganser. My head says buffle. But it's something else. Steady wind from the northwest. Cold. Ground is frozen again. Sun is setting behind me, surprisingly far south or not where I thought west was. You can tell by the house's shadow straight down the field. Reddish spot near the island -- the water is low, black muck exposed all along the edges. The leaves aren't quite blowing in the wind, until a bigger gust arrives. Blackbird flies by. A steady chir chir, or dewitt dewitt: chipping sparrow? a group flies away swooping playfully off to the alder grove next to the pond. A few small clouds, lots of blue. Another beech nut husk, cant see the first one now. I can only see the ground in one place near me, a small black spot showing. Mostly it's dead leaves, grass, shoots: so many wisteria! I could count how many in a square foot, it'd be a lot. Broken bark on the quince. Still no birds in the beech. Something else is growing under the beech, something woody. I get cold in about 20 minutes. Two days ago I sat for 1/2 hr thinking it was 15 min, and a car did a wheely right there.

Sun Mar 8th. Greens: A whorled group of stems 2" long with leaves (or is it a divided leaf?) almost opposite, toothed irregularly, stem is slightly grooved on top. Grass. Bedstraw. Something like a strawberry leaf but not. All around 6 to 8 inch shoots of wisteria, usually with 2 joints / leaf buds. Beech leaves rattling. Dead beach and maple leaves, lacy maple seed wings. A beech nut, with a white worm inside about 1 mm wide by 20 mm long. Field is brown. Some snow patches. Pond is white and black, open water patches and a stretch where the stream comes in. Tick now crawling on my forefinger. Saw a small black spider, too. Bird calls -- red-bellied woodpecker, red-winged blackbird, ducks, others not sure. Flock of something arrived overhead, probably blackbirds. Clouds thickening. NW winds. 50s. 4 pm.