The Vernal Equinox. Reflections…

     And so it has finally arrived: the first day of spring.  Some years the vernal equinox is marked by a heartbreak-blizzard.  Today the sky was true blue, and although the air remained cold, the light sparkled with the unmistakably quality of spring. Signs of the coming season are everywhere: chartreuse moss lit with brilliant orange, tiny buds on trees, melting ice on vernal pools, and the sounds of the first early robins.  There is so much happening outside.  I returned from my morning run with Oli, both of us happily covered in mud. Too cold to spend more than a half hour or so at a time in the wind, I took the camera with me to record some notes for further study in the studio.  For now I will share my day in photos.  Amateur though my crude attempts with a camera may be, I hope you will see something of my thought process here… or at least find connection to my experience of this ephemeral season.   

 

click on thumbnails below to enlarge the images…

 

  

 

  

 

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Ice Storm and Power Outage – Day Six

Today is day six of the ice-storm power-outage in New England.  Utility crews have been working around the clock to get service restored to homes all over New England.  Those of us in more remote areas are still without power, and more snow and ice are on the way.

The destruction is unbelievable .  Trees have been uprooted, snapped off, and stripped of limbs.  As you can imagine, the power lines and poles beneath these broken trees have suffered enormously.  I will post more photos later… but here is a start:

Scenes from the New England Ice Storm of 2008

You can click on these photos to enlarge them a bit.

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The year of dramatic skies…

This rainbow appeared in the sky at sunset on August 7th. Violent thunderstorms circled the valley before and after this display.  I am not sure of why the sky seemed to explode in a ball of rainbow-fire on the horizon. I have never seen anything like it before… and it was much more beautiful than this photo can capture.  The rainbow formed a complete arc in the sky.  It was subtle and paler to the east, and virtually electric to the south.  

 This sure has been the year for weather!

 

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The New Vegetable Garden Site


 The new vegetable garden, roughed in at the edge of the clearing

and with fresh straw mulch…. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

the flat is filled with lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and hardy annual herbs. 

The little frog pond just below the beds is VERY loud right now… 

 

 

Emerging in the garden….


                                                                                                                                                                

   

          

                                                                    

 

 

 chinodoxa, sanguinaria, narcissus ‘lemon drop’, narcissus ‘february gold’, squill, crocus 

and the much anticipated viburnum bodentense……