November 24, 2022

There is snow in the yard, which has lasted for over a week despite daily temperatures that are slowly creeping up and projected to be in the low 50s in the first few days of December. The snow has melted from the hillsides, and is missing from most places just over a mile from our house, but in this little hollow of sorts on the north side of the mountain, it has lasted.

After being lazy about putting out the trail camera for most of the late summer and fall, I’ve been better, and a gray fox has been active, tripping the camera at least once a night. Turkeys have been in the neighborhood, and deer, juncos have returned from the mountain and points north, and I heard a brown creeper this morning as well. As the days are getting to be their shortest, I remind myself that we’re three months out from the woods going mostly quiet at the start of fall migration, and not much more than that away from the return of song sparrows and red-winged blackbirds.