My Oregon Grape has opened its first flower but no insect is brave enough to come out and admire it. The clear sky is a strong cobalt color overhead and drifts to a pastel baby blue at the horizon. The sun is bright but the breeze chill is winning at this time in the morning.
It’s two days since I paid attention to the ponds and in my absence our bridge-to-nowhere has been tagged by a couple of no-talent graffiti-ists. Also someone has flushed the ponds and the water level is now about two and a half feet lower than when I last saw it. The waterfront nesting properties now have lengthy beaches of black mud and pebbles. Large stretches of the ponds consist of exposed mud and grey, sad looking reeds.
The geese seem to like it however, and a large number have returned from their sojourn on the grass. There are a lots of white rumps pointing at the sky as the long necks can now reach the tasty morsels on the bottom of the pond. Peace and harmony seem to be the rule, save for a couple of geese engaged in a noisy courting ritual, which involves a lot of neck contortions and honking; the goose equivalent of teenagers perhaps?
The car lots have their New Year models on display in long lines with trucks lined up, wheel arch to wheel arch, like an army with the large aggressive grills that are favored as this years fashion but which look as attractive as a wood-chipper looks to a freshly pruned branch.
