The Stars and Birds in the Sky

Snow and Stars-1

Photo courtesy of JS

This time of year the farm is dark, like a new moon. Work is being done deep down in the soil, worms and micro organisms break down the season that was tilled in. The green cover crops cover lowly. Soon they will start to jump in response to the longer days, but Green hasn’t dominated yet. The farm is dark; it is brown soaked earth. Everything seem so be quiet, the straw colored field of last year’s growth, the reaching brown bare branches in the orchard, the seeds still call it night as they lie dormant. The new farm, like the new moon, always present but masked in darkness, is unassuming and lets others shine. At the time of the new moon you see the bold Milky Way flying directly over head, as each individual stars sing their song, Pleiades circles and shooting-starlings dive across the sky.

As the farm lies quietly working, up ahead a show takes place too. Raptors have taken over the skies as song birds fill the empty space with their melodies. This valley is home to so many birds and in these dormant months they fill it with life. Their wings span the horizon, taking up effortless flight, finding density in air that is so thin and unsuspending to us.

I’ve been filled with deep gratitude for this avian company. Their shadows traveling along the farm as they look for ground squirrels that may have been coaxed out by the spring like light and warm afternoons. There’s a Bald Eagle pair that can be found dancing about, and will even perch in the tree right outside the kitchen window. The flickers streak their under-red, Meadow Larks their yellow and little browns bounce all about, from orchard to lilac hedges, to junipers and dot the elms. I’m learning to look close, to know names and personalities. My friend Jim is teaching me how to identify wing patterns, flight, song and making the connection of habitat and season of the farm’s bird population.

Soon, we’ll honor the last of the dark new moons and the Celtic day of Imbolic, which recognizes the first signs of spring and falls between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. With it Green will start, the cover crop will begin to reach up, the greenhouse will glow and the dancing pair of eagles will build their nest and peacefully start their family, as Orion bends low in the horizon.