Twilight

I have strolled out onto my deck this evening to read a book.  It is twilight, the period when time is suspended between day and night.  I must admit that I am equally enamored with both sunrise and sunset, and to choose a favorite would be like picking a favorite child.  I love watching the world awaken at first light, but I am equally intrigued when the western sky starts glowing red and the day’s activities wind down.   In the grand enterprise of life, this is the shift change between day’s animals and the creatures of the night.  For me it is my time to relax and unwind and enjoy the cool, still air of evening.

Tonight I emerge just as the sun was dipping below the trees.  I have watched the leaves change from a golden green, back-lit by the angled rays of the setting sun, to now just silhouettes against the evening sky.  It is an active time as the birds make their final scramble for an evening meal before settling down to roost.  I sit back in my chair and watch a nighthawk make a low pass.  Above it a chimney swift beats the air in its pursuit of high-flying food.  To my right a small flycatcher is silhouetted against the top of a cherry tree.  Again and again it makes a mad dash from its perch to snag small insects then quickly returns to await the next hapless bug.

In the lilac bush a Carolina wren has hopped up and is clinging sideways to a branch; its raised tail and quick movements give it a cocky appearance.  However, tonight it is quickly scolded by a chattering hummingbird passing overhead on its way to the feeder.  The hummer takes a quick drink then rises to a low branch on another cherry tree where it can keep vigil over its food supply.  I’ve learned that hummingbirds are among the most selfish and protective of all the birds that visit my yard.  It would seem they exert more energy protecting their food source than they could possible derive from feeding there, but they are determined, if nothing else.

The finches are feeding actively and I can hear the cardinals in the nearby woods giving their “chip” call.  The wings of the mourning doves whistle as one by one they rise from their resting spots on the ground.  A pileated woodpecker sings out with its laughing call as it searches one of the dead trees in my woods for hidden ants or larvae.   Overhead small flocks of birds pass hurriedly to their evening roosts.  One flock stands out, and that is a large muster of crows.  I have not before noticed an evening flock pass by, but I’m sure it is a common occurrence.  I think of Shakespeare’s words, “Light thickens, and the crow makes wing to the rooky wood.”  Their hulking figures lend an eerie quality to the evening.

The light is growing fainter and now a large dragon fly patrols the area near the top of my trees.  I’ve yet to see it, but soon the brown bat will make its appearance.  The mosquitoes are feasting on my ankles, so the bat is sure to have a good meal.

Now the sounds are beginning to change.  Bird calls have become less frequent, but a cicada has started with its raspy buzz.  From a dozen different spots surrounding me in the woods, frogs have begun their evening trills.  A cricket is evidently inspired and joins in this nacht musik.  From across the creek, dogs are barking and baying from farms and backyards.  First it was a lone dog off to my left, but soon a group of dogs with deep voices like hounds added its comments.  The call was carried off to my right as a smaller dog started barking, as well.  Just as quickly as they started, the dogs quickly lose interest and are silent once more.

The air is now noticeably cooler.  For so much of the summer it has been too hot and humid to sit out in the evening.  Even darkness brought no relief, but the sunlight now strikes the earth more obliquely and its heat is much less intense.  Our days are still quite warm, but mornings and evenings are very comfortable and invite open windows.  I’ve moved indoors to escape the mosquitoes, but I can still hear the evening sounds.  The frogs and crickets are now in full voice, and the birds are silent.  The nighthawk just made a final pass before disappearing into the darkening sky.  It is time to bring in the bird feeders before the raccoons make their evening scavenging raids from the nearby woods.  They are always quick to take advantage of a free meal, and all feeders must be in before nightfall.  They usually come when it is too dark for me to see them, but their fighting and squabbling usually alert me to their presence.  The sound of fighting raccoons can be quite unsettling on a dark night, but tonight it is just the frogs and crickets.

Like the birds, I too have come to the end of my daily activities.  Tomorrow I will rise and sit in my rocker on the porch and watch the sun return in the eastern sky.  As the rays of sun warm me, I will resume my book, listen to the shift change once more and enjoy the greeting calls of the morning birds.  “And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night.  And there was evening and there was morning, one day.”  And like Him, I see that it is good.

Spring

I need the spring.  Please don’t get me wrong, I love the winter and could not live anywhere there were not four distinct seasons, but by the time March rolls around I desperately need spring.  I need its warmth, I need its color and I need its reassurance.

When autumn creeps in I relish in its crisp days.  The cool air invigorates me and pushes me on to complete my late season tasks.  I watch the green fade from the landscape to reveal the plants and trees in all their glorious colors.  The wonderful smell of wood smoke ignites distant memories from my childhood, as my neighbors begin to use their fireplaces or burn piles of leaves.  And in those early months of the season, I take in my expanded view of the surrounding woods minus the leafy curtain that has hidden so much the previous summer.  The ducks and geese are again visible on the distant pond.  There is the muted pallet of gray and brown which pleases my desire for earth tones.  I anxiously await the first flakes of winter and later the big snowfalls that transform the landscape into a fairyland. 

However, by March the novelty has worn off.  The landscape has remained unchanged for four months.  The grass is brown and lays flattened from the weeks of heavy snow and ice.  The winter winds have gradually redeposited the leaves I so meticulously worked to clean from my lawn last October.  My flower bed, so colorful last summer, is an ugly scar across the lawn, and the garden ornaments sit askew.  The area beneath the birdfeeder is buried in sunflower hulls which smother the grass.  It is still too early for the return of the neotropical migrants, so it is the same cast of characters at my feeder each day, and these still sport their dull winter clothes.  

This is the time of year I begin to lose faith.  Despite my 48 autumns that have passed successfully into spring before, I still look upon the yard and woods and wonder if it is forever lost to me.  It all looks so dead.  The winter winds have left branches broken and hanging in the trees, and I survey them looking for any possible signs of life.  They don’t always come back.  Dutch elm disease has taken a few of my trees each year, and by winter’s end large slabs of bark have sloughed to reveal the white skeleton of their trunks below.  Will this be the fate of all my trees?  It is the foolish question I ask myself each year.  It is so hard for me to believe they could have survived the long, cold, dark months that have passed.

My first daffodil of the year

And then March arrives.  I look at the branch tips silhouetted against the sky and can see the subtle swelling of their buds.  I scan the earth for any signs of life.  When the snow finally receded this year the snow drops were already standing proud.  And as expected, the tips of the daffodil leaves had already pushed their way through the leaf mulch.  I knew the crocus plants would be the next to appear, and thankfully they both burst into bloom this week, simulated by an unseasonably warm period.

The diminutive Harbinger of Spring

Soon the woods will go through the transformation that renews not only the landscape by my soul as well.  The change reminds me of the scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy leaves the black and white world  of her storm-tossed house and emerges into the vibrant and colorful world of Munchkinland.  I enjoy the crocus and daffodils, but I planted those. It feels a little like cheating.  To really feel that all is right with the world, I need to see the native spring ephemerals make their return.  The first of these is aptly named Harbinger of Spring.  Also known as Salt and Pepper, it is the smallest of our spring flowers and emerges well before any of the others.  It is easily overlooked, and you must set out to find it.  For me it is like the first blip on the ECG screen signally that the flat-lined patient is not dead after all but is still fighting.

A clump of bloodroot

A few weeks after the Harbinger of Spring the patient convulsively bursts back into life.  Simultaneously, the rue anemone, the spring beauties, the cut-leaf toothwarts, Jacob's ladder and bloodroots will all spring into bloom.  Bees will appear and visit the violets that bloom on the edge of the woods.  My bleeding heart sends out its dripping heart-shaped blossoms while its wild cousin, the Dutchman’s breeches, hangs his laundry out in the woods.  Ferns uncoil their fiddleheads.  Dog-toothed violets nod next to trilliums.  My trilliums are a maroon color except for a single nodding white trillium that I carefully protect each year.  The wild ginger hides its burgundy bloom deep beneath its velvety leaves, and the mayapple shades its white blossom with its tropical looking, umbrella-like leaves.  In my younger days, this is when I would roam the hills for sponge mushrooms, but my little patch of woods has yet to yield a single morel.  Mother Nature also forgot to give me hepatica or wild phlox, although they bloom down by the creek.   I’ve added to the natural flowers with pulmanaria, tiarella and brunella.  The bugleweed that serves as a groundcover will deepen its burgundy color and will later carpet the woodland’s edge with its purple blooms.  Once the weather warms, I will sit on the old bentwood hickory rocker on the front porch and survey nature’s show.  

Dog-toothed violet

False Rue Anemone

Dutchman's breeches

Cut-leaved toothwart

My beautiful bleeding heart

Hepatica

 The bird life is soon tochange, too.  Already, the bluebirds have checked out the nesting box, and the phoebe’s are again chasing bugs through the woods.  I will soon hear the flutelike call of the thrushes, although they are not as frequent as they once were.  By early April I will see my first warblers, probably the yellow-rumped warbler, and blue-gray gnatcatchers will dart from branch tips to catch small insects.  The goldfinches will lose their drab green and don their vibrant yellow breeding plumage.  By the last weekend in April, the ruby-throated hummingbird will visit my feeder for the first time.  My favorite part of spring is opening the windows and listening to the chorus of birdsong early each morning.  Territory is being staked out, mates are being courted, and it seems each bird wants to outdo the other. I have to admit that although they are not exotic visitors, cardinals and robins still have my favorite songs.  But I’m also partial to the boisterous “tea kettle” of the Carolina wren and the “Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody” of the white-throated sparrow.  The noise reaffirms that the world is again alive.  When the children are gone, the most conspicuous sign of their absence is the silence of the house.  That is how I feel about the woods in winter.  The kids are gone and the house is too quiet.  

Prairie trillium

My lone nodding trillium

Spring beauties

The velvety wild ginger

I’ve reached that point in life where I am losing family and friends, and life seems all the more fragile.  That is why I need the reassurance of rebirth that spring brings.  Now I am just waiting for the fat around my stomach to melt away like the winter snows and the bare spots on my head to fill in like the lawn.  Maybe I’m putting a little too much pressure on spring’s shoulders, but I can keep hoping.