Evening Slough

I spend a lot of time in the woods taking photographs and listening.

Evening Slough from MOUND

Spring Chorus

You cannot see them, but they are there, near any body of water. They know when you are there, even though they are concealed under leaf litter, and will hush on your approach. If you wait, silently, they will begin playing their combs once again. They are the Chorus Frogs of March. See here for the group experience.

The Chorus

I would be lying if I said that I was perfectly at home in our new environment. It took nearly four months for me to use the word 'home' to describe where we return to. It's not that the land isn't beautiful, clearly it is, or that I am not grateful for the house inherited by us, because I am. I think that it's largely the overwhelming change: leaving our home of nearly fifteen years, all of our ritualized attractions, each place taken in to distract from problems or ourselves, to quiet the disquieting internal dialogue. We've left friends and family (although some family is here) and the reassuring comfort they bring. We've removed ourselves from the network of artist acquaintances that, at the very least, give us the sense we are part of an art "world." Finally, we left our university positions -my wife, adjunct professor at several universities, and myself, university adjunct professor and staff. Like nearly all artists we know, we also must work to pay life's expenses and do the things we want to do. About our move to Minnesota, work is the great, looming question.

At times it feels that it may be easier to land a position as CEO of a corporation than a university professorship. Despite the odds, my wife, with great fortitude, luck, and experience has made it to the final four in a local university faculty search. I acknowledge my bias, but it is well known across a spectrum of university administrators, students, faculty and artists that she is a great professor, artist and role model. She'll be interviewing with several people and giving demonstrations next week. There will be dinners with faculty, lunches with students, campus walk and talks. The whole process is an interview. Although one candidate of four, she may just have a fifty fifty shot at getting the call. If selected, we can move forward here with greater confidence.

If you pray, put in a word for her, us. If you cross fingers for luck, now's a good time to cross 'em. After next week, the months worth of work she has put into this application will be done and we wait. By May, possibly sooner, we'll know.

In the lull I offer the male Western Chorus Frog*, Pseudacris triseriata. singing their greatest hit, "Looking for love in all the wet places..." and the chuckling quack of the Wood Frog, Lithobates sylvaticus, who can hardly take it.

*The species may be the Boreal Chorus Frog, Pseudacris maculata. There are minor physical differences, like slightly shorter legs, that account for differences in species or subspecies nomenclature of North American Chorus Frogs. They are easy to hear and hard to find, and I'm perfectly okay with being mostly right on this one.

Taking Spring

At the morning table with coffee, I was a bit taken by the sudden appearance of a green tree among the gray. When did this happen? 

A basswood, apparently young, but one never knows as trees will linger under the shadow of larger trees for years.

It looks to be algae growing over lichens only on the north-northeast side of the tree. That it is only this tree is surprising. There are plenty of trees with this exposure, many also slim and lack vigor.

Of course, there are other greens on trees. Like these mosses at the base of a nearby white oak, Quercus alba.

_____________________

Although only forty something, the breezes were a moist balm. Rain was on the way, the first rain of spring, and likely the first since October. I lingered outside wearing only a sweater. Toms pace the slough casting their garbled opinions. A red squirrel spits its rattling chastisement. Trilling robins blaze high limbs. The dimly lit woods is colored by sound. The animals take spring sooner than we do.