Budding Red

And so it goes..... The balmy temperatures of the past week were replaced by cooler temperatures and high winds on the weekend, a hollow whistling (and scouring) north wind that made us put up our hoods and look for shelter in quiet coves from time to time.

There was blessed sunlight though, as sharp and a clear as a knife without foliage to filter and diffuse its exuberant dancing across the hills, through the gorges and the bare trees. The wild turkeys are in the midst of their courtship rituals, and whenever the wind abated for a moment or three, one could hear them calling in the woods nearby. I've learned a little more about turkey language in the last few seasons, and yesterday I was able to identify four females and a single gobbler giving voice to their romantic aspirations.

We had thought that the highlands would be filled with spring wildflowers this weekend, and I went out to the woods equipped for hours and hours of happy photography, but the resident flora had furled their leaves closely and folded their buds inward against the cold wind, hardly a bloom to be seen anywhere. A single red trillium (Trillium erectum or Wake-robin) had taken up residence in the lee of a huge old fallen cedar log down near the spring, and safely out of the excoriating wind, the bud glowed from afar like a garnet.

Out of such quiet rambles, sylvan images, birdy sounds and gustings, a northern life is made.