This Week

The revelations were kind of minor, but sweet. I counted 25 goldfinches in the tree kittycorner from Hanna 101, and listened to their modest song. The cherry (I think) tree at the end of the sidewalk leading out of Foster went in a day from potential pink to kinetic pink. It bleeds into its neighbor, a tree that flowers an alarming yellow. I cozied up to the Turkish Fir, which is a brick house of a tree. It's practically square, and its needles fan out in a bottle-brush shape. My favorite thing this week was watching the goldfinshes dine: tiny birds digging with tiny motions to unseat & eat tiny seeds. And finding that I had learned the call of the Anna's hummingbird. It makes a sound like sucking your teeth, or water gurgling down a drain; I heard it & looked up outside the Humanities office to see the sharp beak of our friend poking from the top branches of a bare tree. I couldn't help but tell a random passerby to check the bird out. The gentleman replied, Well, I'm worried for him. It frosted at my house last night. Such community spirit!