Leo Tammi

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

—Robert Frost

According to Swainson, the Shepherd's Kalendar, which dates all the way back to late medieval/early Renaissance Europe, wrote: “If New Year's day in the morning open with red dusky clouds, it denotes strife and debates among great ones, and many robberies to happen during the year.”

Dedication

It’s like when your mom gets you a coat two sizes too big because “you’ll grow will grow into it.”

Quae Tae Me!

“I’m all ears, Boss.”

Goldenrod
…in rumpy bunches,
saffron and orange and pale gold,
in little towers,
soft as mash,
sneeze-bringers and seed-bearers,
full of bees sand yellow beads and perfect flowerlets…Marry Oliver

Slipped the sweaters off the lambs.

A European wood snail takes a measure of native big blue stem. These snails have become prevalent in our landscape. They are widespread and are in ascendancy. They also occupy a space on thrush, grouse and turkey menus. Escargo is easy eating, I guess.

Is this close enough, Boss?

Shoo!

Refreshing paws in the day.

William Cullen Bryant wrote of Big Bluestem:
As o’er the verdant waste I guide my steed,
Among the high rank grass that sweeps his sides
The hollow beating of his footsteps seems
A sacrilegious sound.

A Carolina Wren chose a litter filled garbage can as the site for her nest. She selected the wire from this tag to incorporate into her nest. We appreciate the endorsement.

Though not ostentatious, native common milkweed supports a diverse community. Natives support DEI.

If the path before you is clear,
you're probably on someone else's.
~Joseph Campbell

Sunrise rainbow

Ken Sakata on Substack The ‘sommeliers’ of wool

substack.com/@frontoffice...

its button-blooms the tenderest mauve-blue.
It sends a deep taproot (delicious, boiled),
is relished by all livestock, lends its leaves
to salads and cooked greens, but will not thrive
in cultivated soil: it must be free.—John Updike

Show me a piece of land that God forgot—
a strip between an unused sidewalk, say,
and a bulldozed lot, rich in broken glass—
and there, July on, will be chicory,
its leggy hollow stems staggering skyward,
its leaves rough-hairy and lanceolate,
like pointed shoes too cheap for elves to wear,

Time for breakfast. Isn’t it?

Salsify. Airy heads, where dreams take flight…

This spring, a young ram’s fancy turns to….interrupted by the livestock guardian chaperone

The Livestock Guardian Dogs confer.

Charles Emile Jacque 1813-1894, French

Crimson clover, over and over

The sky has a corduroy look to it this morning. These cloud formations will appear in the early stages of destabilizing flows when surface temperatures are relatively cool.