Mack WilliamsIt was a startlingly bright day, made startlingly brighter by the unusual “June-in-February “ temperatures (calling it “July-in-February” would have been pushing things a bit).
Men were riding motorcycles in t-shirts (but thankfully, it wasn’t warm enough for the “wife-beater shirt” variety). They drove just as fast as they would have if it had been cold and they were wearing winter motorcycle wear (mind over matter also overpowers a man-made wind chill).
A bank’s electric clock-thermometer sign said “Feb. 5th – 74 degrees.” As my drive was taking me out into more rural areas, where nature is less covered over by man’s works, I wondered what the natural world’s response to such sudden early warming would be.
Of course, not planning to exit my car, intent on remaining “wheel bound,” I observed the natural world within view of the highway.
As the windows were open, I heard no sound from the passing woods (me passing them), no bird song, and no squirrel-scurrying sounds from dormant tree boughs. I figured the squirrels were sleeping. I saw no groundhog involved road-side-scavenging for cast-out fast food scraps. I did see one eating McDonald’s fries in the Summer, and thought film of it would make a creative Super Bowl commercial (but McDonald’s is aiming for better clientele who can pay).
I figured the groundhogs were still hibernating, the knock of a “Summer-Spring day” at their burrows’ entrances being insufficient to rouse them from sleep.
But something else was definitely awake, and having its roadkill breakfast — a vulture (his eye is the other “eye that sleepeth not”).
In one cleared area, men were burning a great mass of uprooted tree stumps. On a regular (more “seasonal”) Feb. 5th day they might have been standing close by this great “fire sans fireplace;” but this day, they kept their distance, not needing of extra heat.
That reminds me — on a more personal note than that of groundhog slumber, when I was younger, I used to be a late sleeper (as late as salaried work would allow). But now, my official “oldness” is confirmed by the habit of assuming consciousness around 4:30 or 5 (as per the storied-stereotype about “the time of day when old people wake up”). I have to force myself to avoid my coffee thirst, making an attempt to sleep a couple more hours.
In some areas of woods along the highway, the forest floor “glistened.” This was caused by areas still wet from recent rainfall. Even the wet, dead leaves of the forest floor and muddy areas glistened in the sunlight. It was as if the sky had been brought down to earth by way of reflection, the tree trunks and limbs being a dull sort of “middle earth” between bright sky above and brightly reflected sky below.
All in all, that unusually warm “Groundhog Day-plus three” didn’t seem to disturb nature’s hibernation. It reminded me of when you quietly look in on your young, sleeping children in the middle of the night, and they’re “dead to the world asleep” (unaware of you at all).
By later in the afternoon of that most singular day, increasing clouds seemed heated to just short of the “steaminess” required for the building of an afternoon thunderstorm. But since this was later in the day, the “kettle” had been taken off of the “eye” for now, (the “eye” still glowing between the clouds, but not for long).