Dog (days)

A few weeks ago, I took an afternoon walk at Mount Auburn Cemetery. It was a mild Sunday afternoon–clear and cloudless, but cool enough for a jacket in the shade–and the Perkins dog was resting in deep shadow, spotlit by a single ray of late afternoon sunlight.

That cool and clear afternoon feels like eternity ago now that the dog-days of summer have arrived. Temperatures this weekend are supposed to reach the 90s, and earlier today, I heard the first dog-day cicadas of the summer calling from neighboring trees. It seems this weekend, even the stone dogs will be panting in the shade.

This is my contribution to today’s Photo Friday theme, Dog. Click here for more photos from that cool afternoon walk at Mount Auburn Cemetery several weeks ago. Enjoy!

 

May showers

April was warm and dry, so this year we seem to have reversed the usual seasonal progression, with April flowers bringing May showers.

Last night I collected a pile of essay portfolios in Keene; tomorrow, my literature students will submit their final exams online. This means I’m hunkered down with a heaping pile of grading, something I’m actually looking forward to. There’s something comfortable and even cozy about curling up with a pile of papers when it’s gray and drizzly outside, and I’m looking forward to staying close to home and enjoying my big backyard now that I’m done with commuting to Keene until summer school starts in a few weeks.

 

First-of-year

One of my favorite passages in May Sarton’s Plant Dreaming Deep describes the exhilarating thrill Sarton feels the April after her first winter living in Nelson, NH, when out of the blue she hears her first spring peepers:

Then one evening I heard a slight, shrill, continuous singing, a little like distant sleigh bells. And I suddenly remembered what Tink had said when we sat on a pile of lumber eating lunch that summer day–”The peepers! Wait till you hear them when it seems as if spring would never come!” The long wait was coming to an end.

I’ve never heard spring peepers around our house here in Newton, MA: our immediate neighborhood is too dry, lacking the vernal pools that amphibians need for their annual courtship rituals. But there are plenty of ways we folks in the Boston suburbs know that spring is coming, even in the absence of singing frogs. Today when I took Reggie outside for a mid-morning bathroom break, I noticed one of our backyard trees is blooming, and as I paused to look overhead at its tiny, nondescript flowers, I heard the suburban equivalent of spring peepers: a lone Eastern phoebe calling dryly–nonchalantly–from a neighbor’s yard. I didn’t see this newly arrived solitary singer, but I know he’s there, back north after a winter spent elsewhere: a sign of spring singing in the sun.

 

Sandal season

Last year, after a particularly snowy winter, I spent most of March counting the days until what I call sandal season: the days of spring and summer when it’s warm enough to walk in sandals rather than socks, shoes, or boots. “After so many months of slipping down sidewalks slabbed with ice and hard-packed snow,” I wrote last year, “it’s a simple luxury to walk unimpeded, shoes feeling carefree after an entire season of hiking boots.”

This winter was mild and virtually devoid of snow, so I can probably count on two hands the number of times I wore weatherproof hiking boots instead of shoes. Still, today marked a happy milestone as J and I took a sunny afternoon walk in shirtsleeves, shorts (for J), and sandals (for me). Last week, my “Frontier in American Literature” students finished discussing Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, which features an old, eccentric hermit named Ivar who goes barefoot year-round, believing (as I’ve noted previously) that “feet are a body part immune to sin and thus safe to indulge in sensuous and sometimes dirty delights.” It cheers me to think that crazy old Ivar felt everyday the uninhibited freedom my feet felt today.

 

Recycled

Already yesterday’s snow has been reincarnated as today’s puddles and slick-spots: the metempsychosis of midwinter mud.

This is my belated day eighteen contribution to this month’s River of Stones.

 

Morning news

On snowy mornings, I can read the stories the dog sniffs every day: here, a jogger ran; there, two dogs raced off leash, jubilant.

This is my belated day seventeen contribution to this month’s River of Stones.

 

Watch your step

A morning so cold, the dog’s pee steams, puddles, then freezes on the pavement, leaving a slick yellow smear.

This is my belated day fifteen contribution to this month’s River of Stones.

 

Studded

Another morning steeped in gray drizzle. A sprawling rose bush stands studded with raindrops and thorns.

This is my day thirteen contribution to this month’s River of Stones.

 

Overcast

A drizzly morning, with the sky as gray as an old dishrag. In the hedges, the chickadees flit and chatter, undeterred by cold.

This is my day twelve contribution to this month’s River of Stones.

 

Highlights

A dusting of snow clings to leaves and highlights hidden hollows. Even the bellies of juncos and chickadees look whiter.

This is my day ten contribution to this month’s River of Stones.