Saturday, February 22, 2020

Snowdrops, Carnegie, Waxwings.

2-22-20 VERMONT: We came up yesterday in the sunshine. It was a fast trip with little traffic. The day before I saw snowdrops up in the Short Hills yard and spotted a bloom on peace lilies in the sunroom.

They were up two weeks ago, but just opened.

Peace lily has this one and a second on the way.

That evening we heard the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, directed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, at Carnegie Hall play Beethoven’s Symphonies 2 and 3. They use old instruments and have a cleaner, clearer sound than the lush sound heard with modern instruments. We loved the performance. The strings played the Third while standing, but sat for the Second. There’s lots of Beethoven this year, the 250th anniversary of his birth.


Carnegie Hall, home of stunning sound.

The orchestra and director at the end of 'Eroica'.

We have blue sky and sunshine here today. There’s a foot of snow on the ground around the house, it’s in the thirties with light winds from the SW.

I snowshoed out to the end of the pasture with the canine companions. They had had me up early, so I caught the sunrise. I saw a flock of cedar waxwings working the apple trees. The trees are covered with frozen, shriveled crab apples, the birds ate them last fall, this winter, and again now as spring is waiting in the wings. It’s an annual event for the waxwings. A small raptor went zipping through the yard at one point and all the birds vanished for a while. I’m guessing peregrine falcon.


Pink clouds before the sun.

The sun appears on the horizon further north than last month.

Cedar waxwings, from a flock of a dozen or so. Note the yellow tail, orange wing bar and black mask.

Game cam pix-feral cat on a cold afternoon in January at dusk.

Fox running across the new pond at night, very cold.

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