dead songbirds

Pesticides that are banned in the US are killing migratory North American birds.  The pesticides are being used outside of our borders, in Central and South America, but they still serve our purposes; farmers use them to supply the US with out-of-season fruits and vegetables.  When they return o the US, though, things are still bleak for them: "Millions of acres of wilderness the birds use as nesting grounds have been ploughed under in the drive to grow corn for ethanol, for bio-fuel."  Ethanol sucks.

One of the birds most affected is the bobolink, one of my favorites.  I love how the adult birds go nuts when I walk through the feld on the Wedding Hill, trying to draw my attention away from their nests.  And they're so delicately pretty, too.

Another reason to eat local food.

I've got to kick my pomegranate habit.

Mud Season/Spring

Two weeks ago I saw my first robins of the season, and the mourning doves, silent all winter, began to sing.  10 days ago I saw red-wing blackbirds.  A week ago I saw juncos.  On Sunday I saw snowdrops, some of them blooming in the midst of ice.  This morning I heard a flock of Canada geese returning north.

Bigger and bigger patches of dead grass appear every day, especially on the south-facing slopes.  The streams and rivers are running muddy and loud.

After a long and unusually snowy winter in Vermont, spring - even when it comes so slowly - brings a kind of hard joy.  Like you could rejoice in the face of anything.