Sun at last

From: Caroline
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2003
Subject: Sun at last

Well I never thought I would see the sun again. That big pearl of a moon has just dipped below the horizon – or rather we have turned away from it, but thinking that way makes me a little giddy – and the sun is full at my back and the sky is blue once more. Of course the bird feeders are swinging madly and all the bare branches look pretty restless but the sun, after those long dreary days of rain and gray and more rain, makes up for any wind. I certainly hope it isn’t too chilly, as I would so like to get out and do a little weeding. I realize that I haven’t written for months, but the big and only news this winter was the intense and protracted cold and since everybody knew about that, there wasn’t much point in writing about it. The local plumbers think the ground was frozen to a depth of at least four feet. Now that the big thaw has set in I see the robins doing their hop hop hopping thing as they listen for worms. I do not know HOW the local population survived all winter. Nor do I know how a great gray heron made it. I was astonished to see one fly by the kitchen window some time in February. The crow population, which used to hang out in the big tupelo tree across the field, has been reduced to one. It is believed that they have been decimated by West Nile. I don’t know what did in the cheerful little Carolina wrens, but they have disappeared as well.

The greenhouse holds the promise of summer and flowers. Almost all the seeds I planted have their first pair of leaves and several orchids show flower spikes. One of the orchids that I keep in the house because it is warmer, has flowers like tiny white shovels. Every evening around seven o’clock it becomes very fragrant to the extent that you can smell it from another room. Then in about two hours the fragrance disappears. Talk about miracles! According to Darwin it does this to invite pollination by a twilight moth.

Zoë and I celebrate our second anniversary this month. She has just returned from a short stay at “play camp” where she was introduced to the joys of vanilla dairy queen. No wonder she looks a little bit heavy. Wind or no wind we are walking in Wilbur’s Woods today, Little Compton’s only park. Once around the oval road is 6/10ths of a mile. I am trying to get my knee used to walking longer distances so we shall go twice around. This in preparation for a trip I am taking along the northern coast of Spain in September where I must be able to walk three miles in a day. She loves this walk, as there are lots of deer in that area and she can roam and sniff to her heart’s content. There is a town leash law so I probably should keep her on one, but until somebody complains I will let her run free. There is also a pretty little pond and later on she will want to take a dip. Thank heavens she doesn’t do this in my fish pool. Right now that surface is black and rippled – such a welcome change from the stiff and frozen face it presented all winter. The goldfish seem to have survived somehow as I saw them swimming close to the surface yesterday.