Recent acquisitions.
When I left for my first walk of the day at 5:32 a.m., the thermometer in this window read 58 degrees. Twelve hours later, it reads exactly fifty degrees higher. The light in this spot is so lovely, but in the summer, when the street-facing side of the forever home is bathed in sun, we would be pizza in a brick oven if not for central air conditioning and the beautiful oak that partially shades the front.
According to our arborist, the cold, wet spring was hard on trees, especially oaks, and for the first time in ten springs, that protective oak out front is struggling. We have been relatively lucky, though: Other property owners have experienced catastrophic tree loss since the odd deluge / drought cycles began in 2011. Still, I worry. We lost a maple in the backyard in 2014 to rot stemming from the previous owner’s bad pruning, and shortly after that tree was removed, the backyard oak began showing signs of stress. It was eventually diagnosed with bur oak blight, and, oh, has it been plied with the tree health services since! It finally showed signs of stability last summer, and yesterday the arborist expressed cautious optimism about its chances for survival. He was also encouraged by our ginkgo tree’s miraculous rebirth: Last month, its new leaves suddenly browned and shriveled, but it proved healthy enough to sprout an entirely new set a few weeks later.
I sat down in this clean, well-lighted place to write about the new books I received this afternoon and the one I finished reading this morning, but all of my thoughts are about the trees. I mourned the maple and continue to feel its loss; and I worry about the oaks as much as I do the cats. What explains my attachment?
From Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees:
But we shouldn’t be concerned about trees purely for material reasons, we should also care about them because of the little puzzles and wonders they present us with. Under the canopy of the trees, daily dramas and moving love stories are played out. Here is the last remaining piece of Nature, right on our doorstep, where adventures are to be experienced and secrets discovered.
Over the last two or so weeks, Baltimore orioles, rose-breasted grosbeaks, ruby-throated hummingbirds, white-crowned sparrows, American redstarts, and indigo buntings have returned to our yards, as have the small purple flowers of a plant I lazily dropped in a bare spot in the semi-tamed area out back four years ago. That each spring since I have been so richly rewarded for so little effort (I do not even know what kind of plant it is!) is such delight in this weird, uncertain time.
At the 
Images, unedited and taken with phone, from our recent trip to 
Earlier this month, my older daughter and I spent a morning reading and birdwatching by the lake. When we arrived at our usual spot, lifeguards were dragging battered rental canoes to the water’s edge, and maintenance crew members were rolling mowers off the truck, so we headed to a less frequented part of the shore and lingered there until nearly lunchtime. It was lovely.
That gives new meaning to “pressed into my commonplace book,” eh? I get hook-hand while writing thank-you notes, so it’s hard for me to imagine copying an entire book.
Over the Easter break, my older daughter and I spent a lovely day in Lake Geneva — breakfasting, shopping for antiques and books, walking, and later, just sitting by the water.
Nerdishly 