To the Cedar to Digest

Call from 2:00AM.  Then one at 3:30AM.  It was supposed to snow deep this evening and each break I had I turned off the lights and went to the window and looked outside.  There was snow.  But there wasn’t much of it.  At 5:00AM I could hear my daughter’s alarm go off.  They had been forewarned that there would likely be a snow day today and that five would be the time by which they’d call it.  Not long after I got an email from the school announcing as much. 

When the sun finally came, and she made her way down the stairs looking for orange juice we could both see clearly that it was a wet snow.  I looked again at the online site that told me the temperature outside.  It was twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.  Should be cold enough to snow.  And it is.  But only barely.  We’ll all be sitting around here today, it would seem.   Youtube’s found me a live Lee Morgan from Baltimore in 1968, with Clifford Jordan on tenor, Ed Blackwell on drums, Reggie Workman on bass and John Hicks on the keys, and it's majestic.

The bird feeder is full-on this morning.  Word’s out, on this crappy, cold morning that there is food in this here backyard.  At first it was the usual suspects.  Then a flock of some aggressive birds in black settled on the trees and barnstormed the feeder, pushing everyone else away.  (My mom suggested and the photo app on the Pixel 3 that matches photos to Youtube samples seems to confirm that they are common starlings.)  And then this mobile gang all disappeared and moved on.  I stopped what I was doing just now to consider the blood red, male cardinal with his black facial trim and orange beak.  By the time I had my camera up and ready to zero in on him, he’d hopped and fled. 

How cold they must all be out there?   The rain can’t but dampen their feathers and the air is just cold enough to freeze.  The momentary satisfaction of finding a seed or two must be delightful in the moment.  But as they fly back to the cedar to digest what they’ve found, the awful cold must return quickly, mortal.  Why didn’t they head south for the winter?  Presumably Louisiana and Mexico are nice this time of year.  They must be very tough these local fellas. 

Tuesday, 12/17/19