Whether critters going about their business, a truck moving about its appointed rounds, or excited children, this was a week in motion. The freezing weather seems to be behind us at last, and the world is busy.
When the dog and I were out walking in Sugarbush woods, we came upon a garter snake. Such snakes are common around here, common and innocuous, and this one was a youngster, only about a foot long. I pointed it out to the dog, and he was fascinated. He moved in for a closer inspection, and the snake moved out, its motion sinuous. The snake chose narrower and narrower gaps through the trees. Rascal followed, sniffing like mad, until the gaps were too narrow for his doggy head. We walked on, pleased with our glimpse of herpetological life.
On a secluded boardwalk over a small swamp on another day, the dog and I came upon a muskrat. When we were kids, in the great contentment that always settled on us at the cottage, my sisters and I used to sit and watch muskrats bustling about their lives. They seemed purpose driven moving about the marsh, eating cattails and carrying nesting material to burrows in the banks of the canal. There’s been a precipitous decline in muskrat populations since then. Rascal and I pass many bodies of water on our walks, and I know where the few muskrats along our route hang out. This one was in a place I hadn’t seen one before. We stayed to watch it swim away from us, the sinuous motion of its tail its means of propulsion. My immediate and unshakable impression was that it was lonely, bereft of purpose.
Turkey vultures on the wing look as if they are at their ease and in their element; they seem to have both purpose and patience. They so seldom flap their wings that they themselves seem unflappable. This turns out to be the case even when they are being pursued and harassed by a pair of smaller birds. My husband and I observed this behavior twice this week. We didn’t know turkey vultures did anything that would tick off other birds, but the little birds seemed quite sure the vulture posed a threat. The vulture, undeterred, continued to soar and circle.
It is not unusual for folks in our part of town to see gift-wrapped vehicles, brand-new vehicles not yet available in dealers’ showrooms. These are not cars parked in driveways and sporting giant red bows. These are cars that drive around wearing gift wrap as a disguise. They’re here for emissions testing, and manufacturers don’t want anyone to see how they look. Yesterday I saw a pickup truck that was double-wrapped. In addition to the usual black-on-white, tight-to-the-chassis, camo-pattern wrap, it sported a second layer of solid black, heavy duty and not formfitting. The manufacturer really, really didn’t want to give anything away about this new model. The truck could not have attracted more attention had it sported a big red bow.
Later during the same walk, the dog and I came across two young girls adorned in finery. The elder girl, maybe middle-school age, wore a red brocade tunic and slim-fitting pants, quite possibly silk, shot through with gold threads and heavily embroidered and beaded. A long scarf crossed the front of her neck and hung down at least to her waist in back, wafting in the breeze to either side of her and backlit by the morning sun. She looked spectacular. Her little sister, maybe elementary-school age, joined her, resplendent in a dress of brightest white that cascaded out from her body in tiers to her ankles. Both children wore jewelry and, on their hands, hennaed designs–a complicated mandala for the younger girl, and for the elder a swirl pattern that extended over her wrist and up her arm, emphasizing her slender frame. “We are celebrating Eid, today,” they told me. This festival marks the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting. It is a time of prayer, and a time for celebration, a joyous occasion, and those elegantly attired children were so excited they couldn’t stand still as they waited for their parents to whisk them away.
With the warm weather has come motion, animate and inanimate, indifferent or excited. Spring is upon us, and we are glad to be part of it.
14 May 2021