Twelve Moons of the Year. Significant Sentences. February.

Significant sentences from The Twelve Moons of the Year by Hal Borland, a chronology of the New England Seasons. February (02).

"The chickadee has a scientific name twice as big as he is, parus atricapillus...." p. 49.

"All birds live at high speed physiologically.... The chickadee's tiny heart beats 500 times a minute when he is asleep and doubles that rate when he is awake and active." p. 50.

"The chickadee...a mere fleck of feathered life...." p. 50.

"Dawn...the sense of light is there before the light itself." p. 50.

"Any dawn is beautiful, even one filled with falling snow, simply because it is new...." p. 51.

"...the miracle of sunrise...." p. 51.

"The countryman's footsteps on his way to the woodshed make winter music in the crisp snow, but it is a whistle, not a frigid whine." p. 53.

"Moonlight...strewing the snow with charred skeletons of the naked trees." p. 55.

"Every winter inspires one of two questions: 'This is a real old-fashioned winter, isn't it?' or 'Whatever happened to the old-fashioned winter?' "

"Even Thomas Jefferson asked, more than 150 years ago, 'What happened to our old-fashioned winters?' "

"March comes, a kind of interregnum, winter's sovereignty relaxing, spring not yet in control" p. 60.

Tomorrow: March, Part One.