the March of spring/ Pacific Yew

Yesterday we had blizzard-like conditions here in the Hudson Valley. Snow, sleet, howling winds.. just not enough accumulative snow to qualify AS a blizzard. A couple days ago there were ample redwing blackbirds and grackles passing through my yard and trees. You could hear them everywhere. Each year in March I re-read a favorite book- Kenn Kaufman's KINGBIRD HIGHWAY.. to quote from the book cover... "Jack Kerouac meets Roger Tory Peterson- a very different and remarkable story of a young man on the road." Basically it's all about birding in North American, striving for a Big Year in the 70s. "The birder's equivalent of On the Road or Easy Rider" It's a wonderfully written book. If you're a birder, actually spell-binding.
I love this book. It takes me places I've already been, and also places I will never see... but as you read it, you feel you are there, and seeing the birds Kenn is seeing. Heck, I wish it were a movie, this book!!
Early in the book, Kenn describes his first identification of a Western Kingbird, which becomes his favorite bird for life. I too have favorite birds, and none of them are any kind of special, rare bird. I like Redwing Blackbirds... I love watching them doing their antics among swamp cattails. I like Song Sparrows a lot. A Song Sparrow singing along the road to Cruger's Island, near here, was the bird who hooked me on bird-watching. I love catbirds... they are everywhere... being busy and noisy and nosy and amusing, chattering away from dawn to dusk, never uncheerful unless they are scolding a cat, or squirrel, or Blue Jay.
Years ago, Carolina Wrens were rare around here. Now they are common, and very welcome, as their insistent voices are sometimes heard during the fall, even the winter, and early spring, before any other birds are putting in their "two cents" about the conduct of weather.
I worry about all of them when we have a March storm such as yersterday's. There are a couple of Chickadees that roost at night under my front porch eves, and I was glad to see them huddled up. My cat, Treelo, enjoys looking up at them through a living room window of this 18th-century house.
As for woodwork, it's almost too cold to work in my unheated barn under conditions such as we've been having, but I am working on a very interesting block of Pacific Yew. Now I am at the 120 grit stage, so it's beginning to reveal its glory. I'll make a more detailed report on it in a few days. I can't wait to count the annual rings.... they are very tight, and numerous. Large blocks of Pacific Yew are few and far between. I am very lucky to have one, and one that is completely seasoned and unlikely to split or check or blow up uselessly. I think it's going to be a gorgeous finished piece...
I might send it to Martha Stewart- I am sure she would appreciate it. But, I may never get another such block of wood, so I may just keep it. Selfishness won't get me very far, no doubt about that, but, I do love having an example of different species of wood.
Birds, and wood.... not all that far removed from one another.