 |
| March 4, 2014, 3:00 PM, 30 Degrees |
More raw grayness. There's a coldness about today. Nothing at all springlike. 30 degrees (-1.1 C). Warmer than 6 AM this morning when it was 3 degrees (-16 C). Now? A dim sun in a woolly sky wants to do better, but ultimately fails. It becomes ornament, bereft of any obvious warmth.
 |
| Sunbow at the edge of the solar halo Lucas Rd |
Tuesday afternoon. Pedaling by 3:30. The roads are bone dry. Long white swathes of salt stain. Crusty sand at the edges. Horrible snow banks stained wretched brown/gray/black/sludge tones. Frost heaves. The roads in the Princeton hills have deteriorated badly this winter. Cracks and rifts, crumbling pavement, berms in duress. But at least today they are dry. All the melting occurred this past weekend. Just asphalt now, and sand.
On Mirick Rd, at pretty much the widest outer swing of today's loop through the Princeton Hills and high into snow country and hard wood forest, I come across a chestnut restoration project. Behind the informational sign board (which I don't read), a stand of young chestnut trees growing on the hillside. With the Niceness!
 |
| Mirick Rd Chestnut Restoration, Princeton, MA |
Two striking bird encounters. First, shortly up the road from the chestnut restoration project, I disturb a small coterie of birds. Off they go darting through the trees, all of them hued in blue. I'm amazed, perplexed, I can't see well in the overcast light, I think they might be bluebirds, how odd, really? bluebirds? but these are mostly white beneath and the blue is subdued, but then finally I see one a-lit on a branch close to the road and I clearly see its rusty brown breast and I conclude that they must be eastern bluebirds.
The second sighting was a hawk, a large hawk gliding low overhead and following the corridor of the road. This happened in the same place I saw (and photographed) a hawk on Sunday. I immediately assumed that it was the same hawk and that somehow this elegant creature was now my guardian raptor. I called out to it respectfully, attempting to make known my reverence for its very being. I wanted it to hear me as well as see me. Then I rode on.
Ride Stats: 23.08 miles (37k), 12.5 mph (slow today! The clothing bulk. The sand. The caution). One hour fifty minutes astride. No roadkill! 30 degrees when I left, 28 when I got back (-2 C).
Parting Glance
 |
| Sun down over Sholan |
No comments:
Post a Comment