Prepping Summer

Sunday

• Boats stored ashore have been launched, leaving open lots at this marina.  Seeking to capitalize on a new worldwide craze, a “stand up paddle” enterprise has opened here the last few summers, renting out the necessary equipment for this sedate activity.  But those stuck on land waiting for customers don’t want to be too bored, so they have set themselves a little barbecue and picnic area behind the marina headquarters, where they will sit and talk and listen to music in the breezy afternoons.  Right now, the water is still a bit too frigid, but that will change in a few weeks.
• All along the roadside, and up and down our neighborhood, cars line streets as college graduation and high school reunion parties get into full swing.  We have to drive carefully to avoid strangers walking around, some of them confused from the beer in hand.  Happy times for the young, optimistically looking forward to a life as long and beautiful as the next months are sure to be.  Happy times for the elderly, who have survived another harsh winter and whose joints have begun to ache a bit less.  Sun shines, perfect warmth, life is good.   

Saturday

• The Harbor Boat Club house perches high on a hill over vast docks and waterfront area.  It’s all spiffed up for the coming season, as are the nautical appendages.  Soon the hill will be full of parties and people, as the peak time of graduation, weddings, and other celebrations arrive.  But now it sits often empty, ready but in suspense.
• Back in the fifties, before this area was so metropolitan, my wife’s cousin’s family rented this house and grew up there.  There were dolphins swimming the waters, and baymen making a living with shellfish and lobster, and an occasional fuel barge delivering oil to the head of harbor.  And lots of open lands around the water, where her brothers could camp out on fine summery evenings.  I never saw that, but I viewed my own scenes that are no more.  I cannot imagine what will be here come another sixty years, but if people survive there will probably still be beach houses and parties.

Friday

• For some folks, getting ready for summer involves posting signs telling other people to stay away.  This desolate point of sand has been used for decades by occasional fishermen, and nothing else.  But it is jealously guarded by the same family that claims, based on original deeds wrenched from native Americans, that they own the entire shoreline and roadbed, even though it has been a public thoroughfare for centuries.
• Perhaps it is descendants terrified that they might have to work for a living instead of being supported by the deeds of their ancestors.  Maybe it is the work of lawyers who warn of lawsuits should someone slip into the water and catch a cold (much too shallow to drown.)  Probably it is simply selfish misanthropes enraged at the possibility that someone might be enjoying for free what they could make a buck on.  In the far future, similarly handicapped descendants of the first moon colonists will no doubt be trying to collect royalties  from anyone looking up at the sky, and a percentage of any energy generated by the tides.

Thursday

• Freshly mowed lawn invitingly spread at Coindre.  Long Island sound beckons off in the mist, trees are majestically verdant, visitors have been thinned by the noisy operations of the riding mowers.  Public parks are a wonderful antidote against libertarian capitalistic dogma.  In this case, it took the bankruptcy of the original magnate followed by the eventual bankruptcy of the catholic school that bought it at distress prices to have it eventually fall into the hands of the county.  But who would seriously claim that the community has lost freedom by this, or that the incentive of the selfish has been thwarted by having such a jewel available to all?
• Often unnoticed until budgets become onerous, parks do demand upkeep.  Without mowing, these fields would be far less inviting, the view far less beautiful.  I accept my part of that expense, here and elsewhere, grateful that so many people can use it.  Yet I also realize that in another small way, we pollute the planet with exhaust fumes; in another small way we waste money that might be better spent.  Nothing in real life is as uncomplicated as presented in books, or pamphlets, or the screechings of demagogues anxious to take their place at the public trough.

Wednesday

• Enough boats and nautical power in this one marina to defeat Xerxes, and probably to give Admiral Nelson a pretty hard time.  Yet this navy, having no commercial nor military purpose, remains mostly docked.  The amount of money this culture can spend on frivolous leisure activities is staggering.  But certainly, boats to have a good time are somehow better than the same number ready to kill enemies, or even than this fleet being required for livelihood with fisherman working hard and unforgiving seas every day. 
• I am stunned by the wealth and power displayed.  I overlay, in my mind, the last four hundred years, and see the changes rushing onward and over everything.  More particularly, I am aware of the last fifty, even the last quarter century, when what was a sleepy bedroom hamlet of New York transformed into a crowded manicured suburb.  Like many of my aging peers, I regret what has been lost.  Like them also, I try to accept the changes in good grace and weave them into the fabric of my worldview.   The owners of these vessels do not care and surely have their own worries.

Tuesday

• Locust blossoms whip about in a strong breeze, partially obscuring the working dock in the Mill Dam race.  Around two hundred years ago this was a busy spot with the tidal mill grinding grain from area farms, and shipping loading and unloading from the sail-powered boats in the harbor.   A working dock is just a floating raft with a couple of outboard motors bolted on _ this one has a hoist to take care of buoys.  Not really pretty,  nor for that matter, the canal itself.
• I enjoy these forgotten industrial back areas, which occur everywhere.  Neglected, repurposed, fallen into ruin, they have a more gritty charm than when cleaned up and sanitized.  They always remind me of the hidden corners of my own mind _ anger, frustration, fear, envy, boredom, all the sins.  I’m a bit ashamed of them, aware of their ugliness, but I also know that without them I would be insipid and less complex and hardy than I am.  Areas where the industrial tasks of experiencing life can be performed, often out of sight, always necessary.

Monday

• Memorial Day jam to get boats in the water and begin summer.  The next month is filled with frantic, often anticipatory, activity.  The weather is still iffy, children remain in school another month, work goes on at full pace for most.  College students are home and often taking up temporary jobs.  But people grasp weekends, workers map vacations, children (and teachers) dream of extended days off, employers plan on being shorthanded.  Everyone and everything is geared to the fine months to come.
• Retirement has provided me the leisure to avoid most such preparation, because the important day is now.  Do I deserve such good fortune?  Of course not _ people hardly ever deserve credit nor blame for what happens to them.  I will take credit for having the opportunity to explore my world and taking advantage of it.  On such terms, this period of my life is an ongoing incredible gift.

Greenery

Sunday

• Summery view over the meadow at the Halesite park on the site of the ancient pottery works.  This is a tiny, neglected, overlooked bit of open land, although a shot like this makes it seem larger than it is.  Buttercups add a note of festivity which will be temporarily removed with the next mowing.  A few large trees have been lost here to storm and age over the last few years; surprisingly that has improved the  vista.
• I try not to get too cute about novelty angles like this, which required lying in the grass (thus, I have been informed, risking my life by exposing it to ticks.)  Likewise, I try to come up with some at least slightly different thought each day.  Surprisingly, neither of these tasks is so difficult as it seems.  Any moment at any place in the world is too much for us to comprehend and contains all the novelty anyone would ever need.  Even more so my mind, unbounded by time and with fantasies that escape the realm of the physical cosmos altogether.

Saturday

• Blue Irises in a roadside garden lovingly attended by a private beach club.  But this is not nature, claim purists.  Yet neither are the dock, nor shelter, nor chain link fence, nor, for that matter, the road from which this picture is taken.  Maybe the division is wrong _ people are, after all, part of nature too.  What they carefully tend and present, however out of place in a strict nativist ecological sense, is just as natural as a meadow cleared by lightning strike, or ponds created by beavers.
• Anyway, it is completely idiotic to present Huntington as an area seeking to preserve its native rural character.  Not only is it far more urban than rural _ with thick population, wires everywhere, gas and water lines under the ubiquitous roads _ but “rural farms” themselves resulted from clearing native forests for crops.  I am grateful that people make efforts to beautify even tiny bits of ground for the enjoyment of us all.

Friday

• Wisteria covers a tree by the old mill pond at Cold Spring Harbor.  The inlet is behind the camera, this is just about the exact spot that in the early 1900’s marked the division between the town and dock areas and the upscale “Casino” hotels and estates along the shoreline.  Well-off people would come out from New York City by steam train or steamer boat for a day trip or weekend to taste some of the glory of the “Gold Coast” in its prime.  All gone now, as are many things from that era.
• Wisteria is hardly subtle, often blanketing huge trees in clusters of light purple blossoms, but somehow it is easy to miss in the foliage as I go by.  It takes an effort to appreciate, and I admit my picture does it no justice.  Another example of how I need to sometimes slow down and look hard to see what’s really there.  T’would be a sin to take all this wonder for granted, and assume there is something better right over the next hill.

Thursday

• Out with the old, in with the new!  Fresh reeds have almost replaced the brown ones, which have withstood all the ravages of winter and spring storms so well.  Now broken brown stalks line parts of the harbor in thick mats, gradually decaying away to floating detritus, muck, and probably food for some aquatic creatures.  That is the way of life, that even the strongest go away, and younger take the stage.
• This is easy to accept intellectually, and even beautiful to see in action, but it also cuts deeply as I myself age.  In spite of philosophy and rationalization, I regret loss of my young man full of promise and my middle-aged man filled with purpose and importance.  I was strong, I survived the storms, I am still here brown and stiff _ but the younger green shoots are all around and soon will take over completely.  Spring, as well as autumn, has lessons in mortality and humility.

Wednesday

• This weekend kicks off the bureaucratic start of summer, when fees are collected at parks and beaches.  Lifeguards will be on duty, the buoys for swimming are already out, although the water is far too cold for all but the most hardy.  These chokecherry trees will be ignored by the crowds rushing onto the sands for some sun and open views.  Most of the boats will be taken on their inaugural seasonal voyage, even if it only amounts to a mile or so.
• Meanwhile, plants have taken advantage of the warm turn of weather to expand aggressively.  Every day, ragweed seems to have jumped another foot.  Weeds spring up in our garden and suddenly cover newly planted flowers.  Shaggy shrubs need trimming.  I’m sure if there were man-eating flora around, it would be claiming its first victims.  

Tuesday

• Seems early for beach roses, but they bloom as they will.  All of a sudden transformations are staggering, one succession following another, waves of blooms fading away into fruit.  Not enough time to really appreciate the cherries _ they are long gone.  The azalea blooms fall massively in downpours, but rhododendrons are stepping up with even larger flowers.
• I want to tell it to all slow down, give me some time to enjoy each bit a while longer, but petals keep falling and new leaves obscure color.  Time will not wait for me, not only the spring days but each year rushing by, no matter how horrified I may become at its pace.  I must spend the effort to intensely see and experience instead of doing something “more important” which I have scheduled in ignorance of what truly matters.

Monday

• No mountains as in the Rogers and Hart song, but greens have taken over, swamping the efforts of azaleas and dogwoods.  Many many shades of green, lots and lots of leaves.  It’s an aggressive grab for sunlit territory from smallest weed to mightiest oak.  Even the harbor water is turning murky, algae paint the rocks.
• I’m more like Hansel and Gretel than Leatherstocking _ woods seem dreary and dangerous.  Tree after tree, might contain a witch or wolf or bear, definitely have snakes and biting insects.  Usually more fun to view from a distance than to follow rutted muddy trails endlessly, hoping for a clearing to arrive.  Here, of course, is all civilized and parceled out, and the most dangerous wild beasts are unleashed dogs and angry property owners.

Merry, Merry

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Sunday

• Changes in evergreens are not so obvious as those in deciduous trees, but new needles are being grown and flowerless fertilization spreads invisible pollen everywhere.  This pine is one of the last survivors along the shoreline, although there are still pine trees all around.  They, along with the spruces, are now being threatened and killed by invasive boring insects.  The hemlocks have fought blight for years.  Nature is never so benign as we romantically imagine.
• Compositions like these remind me of Ma Yuan, a Chinese painter of the Song Dynasty (around 1200).  “One Corner Ma” was famous for putting all the detail in one corner of the silk, and leaving most of the surrounding area to the imagination, with just a hint of soft ink indicating a misty horizon or vast waters.  One reason to enjoy art is to realize that other people can see and think a bit differently than we do, and to occasionally inculcate their insights into our own consciousness.

Saturday

• Waterfowl have had chicks, fish have spawned, and now it seems to be time for the horseshoe crabs to mate.  This one is slowly circumnavigating a restricted dock area in Northport in motions resembling a drunken Roomba vacuum cleaner.  Perhaps a little confused by looking for a beach area where there is none.  Usually, eggs are laid into shallow depressions dug along the high tide level.  These are everywhere, numerous, an apparently inexhaustible resource even though now harvested for various purposes.
• As inexhaustible, no doubt, as the lobsters and fish that once graced these waters in plenty.  We think the environmental catastrophes have taken time, but really it was all in a blink shortly after 1950.  And the worst is, although we now are aware and even trying to protect our resources where they are obvious, like here in an active public park, the worst atrocities are still occurring out of sight, in deep ocean or hidden rain forest.   Well, I must accept what there is, I suppose, and be grateful for so many of these, right here, right now.  I’m glad public opinion, at least, seems to be starting to gain a little maturity about the need to protect our world.

Friday

• Anywhere is now gorgeous.  These azaleas happen to be at the harborside park in Northport, but with the luscious new green on each tree other colors are almost superfluous.  It’s nearly a crime to be stuck inside, as so many are.  And, no matter how pretty the photograph, it can never do justice to reality.
• Northport is a few miles from my usual walk, and I have broken my self-imposed discipline of only showing places I can reach on foot.  It’s not boredom, exactly, but it is boredom, generally.  Why worry, you ask?  Because I firmly feel that unless you impose limits, you cannot reach mastery.  Like having a certain structure in a sonnet or haiku.  Our choices are nearly infinite , there are very few external constraints, and if I try to extend too far, I may miss becoming profound.  Contemporary arts, I think, are a little ragged now _ our culture’s most beautiful work seems to be in crafts where artisans respect their materials and tradition deeply by accepting artificial traditional boundaries.

Thursday

Fresh new scene, he thinks.

Blossom drift frames azure wave

Aged: six billion years

Wednesday

• Tent caterpillars preparing to march out en masse and munch through tender young leaves.  A few days of extraordinary heat bring insects out in force.  Bees of all kinds, flies, even a butterfly or two.  Gnats hovering annoyingly right in front of eyes, fortunately no mosquitoes.  And that’s only what’s visible _ the ants and termites and whatever else lives in tree trunks and old leaves and underground largely pass unnoticed.  A bonanza for the swallows, which can be seen darting about overhead in the twilight.
• There are not too many odes to tent caterpillars, or to mosquitoes for that matter, but they belong on earth as surely as we do.  Just not exactly where I am.  Put them on a reservation somewhere _ a wilderness they can inhabit in their own way as we do ours.  Ah, yes, that idea didn’t work, did it?  My environment is vast and complex and not comprehended and perhaps there is a place in it even for the things that bother me.  I try to cultivate that attitude, but sometimes it is extremely difficult.

Tuesday

• It’s hard to hate delightful fluffy tiny goslings, all balls of fur waddling around behind their parents.  Inevitably, strollers pause and smile and sometimes take pictures.  Yet they grow up to be annoyances, filling parks with their waste, taking over golf courses and playgrounds.  Of course, one is impossible without the other, symbolic of the contradictions of the world.
• We enjoy natural things, but we think they should stay in their place.  That’s the trouble, as Darwin noted _ life never stays in its place.  It overproduces, and fills old places, and finds new ones, and ingeniously adapts and evolves into ever more niches.  We have been guilty in the last few centuries of stomping stuff into containers a bit too much, or carelessly destroying environments because we think we have more right and better usage than what was there.  What is nearby _ like baby birds on a shoreline _ becomes all the more precious when we realize our loss.

Monday

• Apple blossoms bursting on the only fruit tree along the waterfront.  May is a romantic month, filled with hope and optimism, as nature seems to reconquer the whole world.  Goslings have hatched, fish have spawned, every weed is leaping up in profusion, and grass seeks to cover everything with a mat of green.  Besides, folks can walk around in shorts and tee shirts, happily unencumbered with the heavy detritus of the last few months.
• Only a curmudgeon ignores this reality, and fortunately I have not reached that jaded state yet.  My blood and thoughts quicken as much as anyone’s.  I know that in a few months the magic will wear thin, the weeds will seem oppressive, the heat will combine sweat with dust into annoying mud on my brow, and I will wish for relief from the burning sun at midday.  But this moment is almost perfect, and almost anything seems possible, and I would be a fool indeed not to wallow in joy.  

Floreal

Sunday

• Traditional Chinese landscapes of ink on silk convey distance with the use of blank space and mists, skillfully leading the eye from foreground to distance.  What is left out is just as important as what is added.  That is in complete opposition to Western style landscapes, which normally saturate the surface and rely on perspective and slight softening of detail on the horizon to show how far away objects are.  Connoisseurs of each convention tend to regard the other as relatively primitive.
• Conventions are curious things.  I see mostly in “Western” mode except for unusual conditions such as this heavy fog blanketing the harbor.  I assumed that the Chinese blanks were a philosophic choice.  And yet, now that photographic evidence is available of the mountains and streams which those painters used for models, it is obvious that such is the way such scenery truly looks.  I find myself always too prone to hasty judgement and lazy belief.

Saturday

• This shoreline sunny, clear, and hot but the lighthouse outside the inlet is braying rhythmically.  Tendrils of what must be dense fog over Long Island Sound are seeping around the bend over toward Lloyd Neck.  Fog used to be a terror for commercial vessels in the days before radar, and for smaller craft before the more modern adaption of universal satellite positioning.  Now it is simply an inconvenience.
• Winslow Homer made a wonderful painting on the subject called “The Fog Warning” which I used to study reverently at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.  A fisherman desperately rows back to his distant home ship as a thick cloud hovers ominously nearby.  Some pictures from that era are more like novels or theatrical productions than mere snapshots, we end up caring for the poor guy, wondering what will happen, how others will be affected.  Nothing so dramatic about to occur near Huntington, but nice to have the reminder of the old days, and for that matter me in my younger ones.

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Friday

• Almost summer, the leaves on the perennial vines of the bittersweet open, the hills completely greened, the harbor inviting and filled with pleasure craft.   Although the air is warmed, the water is not, and the inviting beaches are empty.  Children in school continue lessons in reading and writing and testing, parents at work continue desperately to remain relevant and to somehow accomplish impossible tasks, those doing neither often wish they were once again.  From now on, almost day by day, there will be more people taking time to enjoy the outdoors.
• Those of us living in areas with seasons claim to love them all.  Spring is easy to praise: warm, not too hot, outdoor wonders not quite restricted by annoying insects (although the ticks have arrived already),  sand and trails not yet choked with crowds, clean colors all around, crisp air and brilliant sun relieved by showers recognized as absolutely necessary for vegetation.  And, most of all, we know it will go on forever _ the days are still getting longer, winter fades and next year is far off, a whole glorious summer lies pristine before us.

Thursday

• Varied hues of green now visible are enough eye candy even without any blossoms.  Missing the smaller spectacles merely because there are more strident attractions all around is unfortunate.  The real miracle, after all, is that the breathing vegetation recovers after hibernation, renewing the air, purifying the water, keeping the Earth going for everything else.  The pretty flowers and the delicious fruit are nearly trivialities in the grand pattern of life.
• Just as for us, love and beauty and happiness are trivialities compared to the necessities to work and eat and take care of the requirements of the day.  Yet love and beauty and happiness are what we most consider and most desire and most remember.  The importance of material things hardly impinges on our need for the spiritual.  I like to consider contradictions like these, for if there is a key to understanding it lies less in reconciling them, than in accepting the impossibility of doing so.   

Wednesday

• Some shots are too cute and easy, like this one from under a flowering cherry at Gold Star Battalion Beach.  Why plant a weeping cherry at the beach?  Who knows, but it was an inspired choice.  The far shore is finally being clothed in green, sailboats are sitting ready for coming weekends.
• What I cannot show is the life under the surface waters.  Walking out on the boat dock barely visible in the center of this harbor, I looked down and was amazed to see a school of thousands of large fish, swimming in crowded unison, remaining still in the strong incoming tide.  My camera could not capture their subtle movements, but human eyes are adapted to see movement especially well.  Eventually the crowd moved on a ways, and I was left to ponder all the mysteries of which I remain unaware even in the places I think I know best.

Tuesday

• Brief heat spell.  This is exactly imagined paradise _ sweet fragrances, plentiful birdsong, luscious colors, no wild beasts nor annoying insects, hot enough to roam naked.  Perfection distilled.
• I am a poor candidate for the Garden of Eden.  I become bored pretty easily _ here I am walking around, thinking, snapping pictures, planning the afternoon.  That may be vice or virtue _ a vice now when contentment should rule, but a virtue when once I needed to earn a living or even later today when the yard needs some touchups.  As a destination, Paradise is pretty wonderful;  as a journey, not so much.

Monday

• French Revolution committees invented the metric system, used worldwide by anyone doing serious measurements (obviously not American road engineers or food consumers.)  Less successful was calendar reform.  True, Gregorian months are meaningless and irrational (who knows what February stands for, and October is not the eighth month.)  Claiming history began in France, and numbering years with difficult Roman numerals (in a touch of hubris worthy of the NFL) was a hard sell, but beyond that, the monthly naming themes are hardly universal.  Thermador is not the hottest month in Tierra Del Fuego, and almost nowhere experiences the Parisian fogs of Brumaire.
• Huntington shares nearly the same climate as Paris, so Floreal would relevantly describe our “Flowering Month.”  Like most Americans who cling to inches and miles (in spite of the insanity of food information like a 4 ounce serving containing 425 grams of fat), I enjoy a bit of quirkiness to keep my individuality.  Which is why I cultivate a thin layer of French cultural awareness.  I’m no Francophile _ I favor fast food over most French cooking _ but it’s nice to know another language somewhat, and keep up with events that have absolutely no relevance to my daily life (for example, French politics can be incredibly entertaining.)  Thus I glide through Floreal now, remembering French painters and phrases, just little different I am sure than most of the thoughts of those around me.

Prest-O-Pop

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Sunday-

• Pretty, shiny, clean, unusual red.  Careful not to touch, as poison ivy comes back in strength, untroubled by deep winters, heavy storms, or long droughts.  Definitely something to be seen only.
• Even taking this picture seemed a bit of an adventure.  I looked down at my feet and there were the subtle little vines with their innocent looking buds reaching towards my sneakers.  Poison ivy used to be one of those things, like bee stings, that you just learned about as a child, with whatever consequences teaching you to be a little more careful in taking things for granted.  Nowadays, I suppose, cautious parents fearing deathly reactions keep children well shielded from such things. Perhaps, like Siddhartha’s father, they may find such isolation from reality has its own unintended consequences.

Saturday-

• I wandered lonely as a cloud/That floats on high o'er vales and hills/When all at once I saw a crowd/A host, of golden daffodils;
• This scene at Caumsett State Park of the 1711 Lloyd House and 1756 barn reminds me of the William Wordsworth poem.  Vast fields of naturalized daffodils are a remarkable feast for the eyes _ a synopsis of my contradictory views of landscape.  The view pleases me far more than would virgin forest which originally occupied  these slopes.  Like Thoreau, I contemplate the intersection of humans and nature and universe; like him, from a safe, civilized, and long-tamed bit of property. 

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Friday-

• Huntington’s Tulip Festival is in a few days, but the guests of honor look pretty sparse.  Sometimes whole fields of blooms can burst open in hours, but these don’t look quite ready to pop yet.  Picking a hard date, or even weekend, for events is always chancy.  The weather for the fall festival is frequently awful, and even in the summer there have been rainouts during the art show.  But predicting flowers in a season of unknown variables is impossible. 
• Hecksher park is always nice this time of year.  I joined joggers and walkers and strollers and tiny tots and grim old folks taking laps around the pond, gawking at turtles and a huge white carp, not disturbing the swan on its nest.  Some days like this feel like old times, as if we could go back generations and whole families of different ages would be doing much the same thing.  A nice, gentle, feeling of connections through time.  I hope it remains in the far future.  In the more immediate near future, I will return when everything is open, one of the lucky people able to adjust my schedule to fit that of nature.

Thursday-

• Flowers get all the glory, but newly formed leaves have their own infinite range of crisp shapes and subtle varied hues.  Like an individual lost in a crowd, each leaf comes to mean almost nothing except as it contributes to the whole.  This maple cluster has dull red cotyledons, dark and light greens freshly glistening, sharp edges, and intricate origami folds.  In a day or so it will be _ just another unnoticed spot on one of the numerous trees along this road as cars race by.
• It’s probably too easy to make too much of this.  If there were a problem, I think it would be that we have so much attracting our attention that we miss the basic reality that there is always more to experience more deeply.  Our vision darts from tulip to magnolia to forsythia to cherry and once in a while notices sky or water.  Then it’s back to business, or the radio, or shopping, or worry or planning.  Who has time?  Only nature.  Only leaves like these.

Wednesday-

• Buoys have been laid in the harbor for weeks now, and after a proper incubation period in the warmer weather, it seems they are hatching boats just about every day.
• I used to resist using zoom too much as a false picture compared to a snapshot.  But any selection of anything, any art, any communication, is necessarily not the whole truth.  I remember a tale of the French artist Courbet where a hiker came upon him painting in a field.  The naturalistic landscape was beautiful, but as far as the traveler could tell had nothing to do with anything around them.  He asked Courbet, who silently pointed do a distant hill, where the onlooker finally made out the small bit of barely noticeable scenery.  So, sometimes, I use zoom and close focus which select and distort _ very much like my words each day.

Tuesday-

• Cherries are now joining the parade of forsythia, daffodils, magnolias, tulips and other less spectacular colors.  Well, green is a pretty spectacular color if we consider chlorophyll as the main reason why the biosphere exists as it does.  But people tend to discount what is most plentiful.  For that matter, the deep blue sky is hardly an aesthetic slouch.  Around the bend, red-winged blackbirds have started their racket, warning passersby to keep their distance.  Soon their ancient battle with nest-robbing crows will begin again.
• This week, in particular, the scenery changes over the mile that I walk from the inlet to the head of harbor.  The inlet is exposed to the open sound, from whence have been blasting constant frigid winds rechilled by the large expanse of cold water.  When I start, up there, spring has hardly started, trees are bare branches, leaves are only unfurling grudgingly, if at all.  But by the time I have reached Mill Pond, everything is open, even most of the trees, and what is not completely covered by foliage is at least decently cloaked.  And should I venture further, into town, well,  anything not open is probably killed off by the winter.  Birds must experience amazing differences as they swiftly dart around.

Monday-

• Perhaps reflecting a violent streak in the culture, there are many references to explosions, bursts, and fireworks when describing what is happening all over the landscape.  A tree suddenly flowers.  A flower suddenly fades.  Leaves suddenly hide branches.  Grass lawns appear to jump a few feet tall overnight.  Whole hillsides are reworked, fields shift colors en masse.
• I prefer a gentler comparison to popcorn or certain breakfast cereals.  While occasionally startling, these huge changes are never scary.  They are harbingers of better times _ each day makes it more certain that snowfall is banished for another 9 months or so, that temperatures will continue to edge a bit closer to comfortable.  Watching these cherry blossoms frame the water is simply  delightful.  Everything else is a grand pageant, which I am privileged once again to witness.