Cold, but the Bluebirds are Singing

I am so thankful that the sun is starting to come up when I go out running in the morning. That running in the dark is for the birds. Yes, I could wait to run later but then I'd miss seeing my friend Clarence who drives Liam's school bus and waits at the cemetery to time his route right. We talk and it is cool. He is an amazing person, a joy to know. He knows how to do more things than almost anyone I know. He's tanned salmon skin. Says it's turquoise and incredibly soft and strong. Why aren't we making shoes out of all those farmed salmon we eat? Things like that, that's what we talk about.

You must try to imagine the songs of bluebirds ringing out across this cold and forbidding landscape. They soften it quite a bit.

On this morning (February 23), the pileated woodpeckers were drumming their strong, swelling and then fading tattoo, and red-bellied woodpeckers were quirrking everywhere. White-breasted nuthatches were yammering and cardinals were singing their rich sweet songs.

The air pollution from all the chemical and coal-fired power plants along Rte. 7 augments the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets, peachy melon pollution in a low hazy ring in the winter sky. Summer sky, too. It's gotten better in the 21 years we've been living here. When we first moved here we could smell it. Every day. Some days we couldn't even go outside. Now we can't smell it, but we can see it.

Since our huge oak fell down, I've become attached to this one, which amazingly enough is also on our land. But just barely. One small corner of our 80 acres stretches across the road and comes to a point right at this tree. Because she is a line tree and full of fencing and metal, no one will cut her. Thank God. I couldn't bear that.

She's probably about as old as our driveway oak was, well over 100 years. She cuts quite a figure on the land. 

I'll listen for the brown thrasher who sings in her crown, and watch her leaf out come spring.

I wrote this post before Daylight Savings Time kicked in. Yes, it'll be darker when I go out now, but I'm kind of glad it has swooped in to save me from abnormality. Every year at this time I start waking up at 4:45 AM. Why? Who can say? Overactive pineal gland? Listening for the woodcock and turkeys, the first song sparrow of the morning? All of the above. 5:45 AM: better. Not much, but some.