Aspen Allegations - A Sutton Massachusetts Mystery

Chapter 8

The afternoon sun drifted with a pale blue light through the layers of clouds that coated the sky like a gentle blanket. The promised additional snowfall for today had never materialized, so we were left with the three inches which fell yesterday, now coated with a crusty top layer, like the glazing on a crème brûlée.

I gazed out my back slider with a smile at the frosting of white that now blanketed the landscape. Only two days ago my kayak was ready for another trip on the pond. And here we were, seemingly submerged in the heart of winter, with a flurry of birds making swooping visits to my various feeders.

I looked again at the snow. It had been said the Eskimos knew a hundred words for different types of snow. Of course that had been proven to be an exaggeration. The Inuit simply interlace words like we do in English, to have soft, wispy snow and hard, crunchy snow and everything in between. Still, it was an interesting thought. How many identifiably unique types of snow could there be?

Well, yesterday's three-inches had been a gentle snow – when you stepped in it there was no crunchy surface to push through. But it did form a solid impression of where your foot had landed, and there were no gentle cascades along the edges once you removed your foot. So maybe this could be called an easy-walking snow. Your feet went in, came out again, and if you wanted to you could retrace your steps.

Last night's rain-snow mix had turned that snow into quite another form. The hard-topped-crunch snow was something to be more cautious of. Going down a slope, one had to be sure to give one's foot an extra stomp to get through that hard layer, lest the foot slip and send the owner skidding down the hill on their backside. This would not be an ideal snowman-building snow, for example. Perhaps we would call this one-foot-stomp snow.

I rolled out my yoga mat, delighting in the wonderful scenery that nature had provided. Not only did the world glisten as if fairies had visited, but the evident wealth of bird life was staggering. Out the side window to my left I could see the main sunflower feeder. A steady stream of chickadee, titmouse, and goldfinch came fluttering in and out. These patient birds each took their turn, removing just one seed and flying off to work on it.

Suddenly a young male cardinal arrived, his muted brown feathers interlaced with the brighter crimson colors. He was less interested in sharing and took up residence on one side, glaring at any newcomers with a sharp, beady eye.

Below the feeder a flock of stealth doves – my name for the grey mourning doves – poked around in the snow for fallen seeds. Over toward the large rock was a group of juncos, their white bellies matching the snow over which they hopped with quick agility.

A movement on the two suet feeders on the maples caught my eye. Was that a fawn-brown nuthatch I saw, clinging to the tree? I'd never seen a brown nuthatch before! In a moment the bird hopped to a nearby branch, and I smiled. His stubby, cocked-high tail showed him to be a wren.

I moved through my routine, buoyed by the delightful movements of nature around me. A downy woodpecker came to sample the suet feeder, soon joined by a nuthatch. Blue jays watched from high in the trees, fluffing their bodies against the wintry chill. As much as I loved hawks, I was thankful that I saw none gliding in silent watch overhead. There was a virtual smorgasbord of feasting options for them, but I was grateful the gathering was able to enjoy their meal in peace.

When I was finished, I was loathe to leave the beauty that nature had brought to me. Instead, I fetched my laptop from the living room and set it up in the center of my natural-finish lauan dining room table. The walls were done with sage green paint, and the room featured a pine hutch. The stationary half of the sliding glass doors was fronted by a set of stainless steel shelves holding all of my porch plants. The large rosemary plant earned a top shelf location with its bushy leaves. Several jalapeño plants joined it there. I had once thought these were annuals, but an experiment proved that they thrived when brought in to winter. Even now they were creating green fruits for me. A rose plant on the corner delighted me with its delicate fragrance.