I awakened before dawn this morning and stood outside in the darkness, waiting for a fragile scrap of waning moon to show her face above the horizon in the southern sky. She was visible for only a minute or two before fading away in a graceful gesture of kinship with the rising sun, but the slender crescent of light remained on the inside of my eyelids long after retreating into the high still light of morning.
A single male cardinal perched in a maple tree in the garden singing blithely, and he didn't seem to care that it is only late February and there is a lot of snow about. On our early walk, two owls were perched in an old beech tree in the park, a splendid pair of mated "great hornies" greeting the day with gentle nudgings and hootings.There was no mistaking their pleasure in being together and sharing a tree for a few minutes, but that is probably the only quiet time they will enjoy today. There is a brood of little owlets in another tree down the hill, and the parents are run off their feet (or rather their wings) finding food for their hungry offspring.
Returning home, I made a robust beaker of French roast with freshly ground beans before ransacking the freezer for blueberries, then the refrigerator for organic flour and maple syrup from the highlands, a fine rosy beginning for late winter day. The approaching new lunar cycle (and hopefully the arrival of spring) calls for a celebratory gesture of some kind and a little culinary magic. Fresh "made from scratch" journey cakes (or pancakes or bannock) seemed like the right way to go, and the fragrance in the kitchen was downright ambrosial.
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