Spring, Hell, and Audubon's Birthday

There is no fire in Hell, where Alison is running a marathon this morning. In Hell, Michigan, the torment comes in the form of thick, black mud--and hills steep as rooftops. The runners are either slogging through mud at the bottom or pushing on their thighs to make it up a hill. As if that were not enough, Alison is also sleep-deprived, having left this morning at 3:45 to pick up her friend Mel and make the two-and-a-half-hour drive in time for a 7:00 a.m. starting time. When I was growing up, I was told people did not have fun in Hell, but now I know different.

The photos above of the house and of the elm tree with the bark falling off are photos of firewood. Gradually we're getting the slabwood stacked, and after the morels come in (two or three weeks from now), I'll be cutting, hauling, splitting, and stacking a good number of our dead elms. Our hope is that since the elm roots will still be in the ground, our morel harvest will not be diminished.

Observing the advance of this particular spring here is analogous to a ride on a bucking bronco. Just when you think your feet are on the ground, you're whipped high in the air again. Just when you decide not to bring in any more firewood this year, you're hauling in armloads of wet wood in a forty-degree downpour. As you can see above, the river rose a foot in the past 24 hours. The marsh marigolds are growing fast: sixteen days ago they were just 2-3 inches high; now they're ten inches high and with blossoms.

The birds continue to return despite the fluctuations of temperature and rainfall. Recently we've seen two bald eagles nearby. One flew some fifteen feet over Alison's head where it was causing a huge ruckus among some Canada geese with eggs. The past three days have brought us the return of kingfishers, towhees, thrashers, white-throated sparrows, and chipping sparrows. The dominant voices on the "Daisy Slope" are those of the field sparrows and the gray treefrogs. Down in the marsh, all the talk is about song sparrows.

But the big news is Marcy's snowy owl. I did not know even to hope for a snowy owl around here, but several days ago, Marcy saw one perched on a signpost near a busy highway in the broad daylight near Ithaca. She is rumored to have photographed it with her telephone, the writing of which makes my brain go numb.

Finally, raise a glass to John James Audubon today. He's 224 and still having his Journals edited by strangers.