And Spring Slips In

　

According to those who monitor these things, spring arrived at 6:29 this morning. For days now, I've been listening to the birds, noticing how different their songs are as they sing about the passing of yet another winter into memory. Oh sure, we might get a few more flakes or maybe even another full-fledged weather "event." But as the earth turns her face toward the sun, anything the clouds send down from here on out won't create much of an impact and will be gone much more quickly.

　

It's interesting to note that, while I wasn't up at that time this morning, I was awake, listening to a loud symphony of crow music outside my window. I do sometimes get up a bit sooner than that and toss some bread out, and it seems I've created some sort of ritual in the process, as it doesn't take long for the crows to swoop in from somewhere to get at the scraps before the turkeys and gulls and squirrels do. But beyond that, I also heard a cardinal, and the tufted titmouse was finally singing its spring notes.

　

Not long ago, a snow-removal crew shoveled all the snow off the roofs here, and they bent my shepherd's hook over in the process. At the time, the ground was still frozen solid, so I couldn't do anything about it. Yesterday, though, I was easily able to bend it back to some measure of straightness, as the soil it's standing in was very pliable and cooperative. I also shoveled some of the snow away, exposing more of that soil in the process. And now, that whole area is bare and dark brown against the surrounding banks, a welcome sight for these winter-weary eyes.

　

One thing is certain: if the temperature does approach 50 degrees F. today, as predicted, there will be plenty of melting going on. The trees are also ready to leaf out, as is evidenced by the fat swollen buds on the ends of the maple branches across the parking lot. I read somewhere that the maple sap stopped flowing once the weather turned cold again, so hopefully the tappers will be in business again now that the days are warming...

　

...which they can't help but do as the earth turns her face toward the sun and continues to do so at the rate of 1,000 miles per hour until what snow there is no longer stands a chance.

Night Sounds

Some nights I have trouble falling asleep, and it has nothing to do with not being tired enough or having too much on my mind. I can't sleep because I don't want to miss a single thing that is going on out there in the dark woods just beyond my bedroom window. It's particularly bad on warm nights when the window is wide open and my face is just inches from it. While it's too dark to see anything, there is plenty to hear especially now as summer is winding down and many woodland creatures are putting on their best performances of the year.



If the woods belong to the woodpeckers, crows and hawks during the day, then the night definitely belongs to the owls. As early as 9 p.m., I hear them sometimes far, other times near, but never to be mistaken for anything but the mysteriously magnificent creatures they are. While I've never seen one in all the time I've lived here, I've certainly heard them plying the night air with this distinctive calls. If my research serves me right, I'm hearing the barred owl a lot these nights, as well as the great horned and the long-eared owl. And not to be outdone are the loons, whose calls exhibit a new sense of urgency as though they are giving it all they've got before it's time to leave for another year. It always begins with their first haunting notes, then builds to their more insistent tremulous calls as they move from place to place.



This is also the season of the cricket and other insects that fill these woods with sounds both high-pitched and insistent. I hear the coyotes barking and yipping from deep in the woods and a nearby dog barking its response or its distress. Sometimes I hear something come crashing down among the trees, as I did one night not long ago when something screamed before the crash came. I suspect that one of my cats had approached a raccoon and it scrambled up a tree only to find a branch that wasn't strong enough to hold it. I went out the next day to inspect, but with so much dead growth interwoven along the forest floor, it's always hard to tell if anything new's been added to the pattern.



Last night, the rain came down steadily and heavily for several hours, and this morning, the residual raindrops sparkled in the sunlight as they slipped from the leaves. I lay awake a long while listening to it and feeling the spray coming in through the open window, of hearing the rain bearing down on the roof. At one point, it was hitting the ground so hard that my room was bathed in the rich earthy smell of the soil as its particles were being displaced by the insistent raindrops. It occurred to me then that, along with all the others wonders that nature keeps presenting to me, it now seems that she also has the capacity to turn and aerate the earth simply by raining down upon it. It's a scent that I always eagerly await in the spring and that touched a somewhat bittersweet note in me at this point in the year.



Which brings me to this, the fact that I have now been sharing my thoughts and observations here for nearly a year as the seasons once again come full circle. I began last year around this time to put down what I see and feel here, what I've learned and what realizations I've arrived at simply by looking at things such as leaves and by listening to what the wild creatures have to say. As I end this today, a crow is cawing from a nearby tree, announcing its presence in this rain-washed sunkissed place I call home, where I hope to continue, at least for a little while longer, to find new things to write about. Somehow, I don't think that will ever be a problem.


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The Wonder of Plants

Once again, the haze and humidity have cleared, and I am left with a sharper brighter image, as though nature washed her windows clean. Every growing thing is renewed, and the early morning light smiles in bright yellow-green on the leaves of every tree and shrub.

Plants are remarkable things, and I've learned so much about them lately from all the research I've done for various online content articles. Here, in these woods, I'm literally surrounded by more varieties than I can count, and I doubt I'd be able to discover them all, considering how playful nature is in forever introducing new varieties into the landscape. From the tomato plants that I myself so lovingly put into the ground each year to the tallest pine that grows up on the ridge, all share growth characteristics all the while possessing features that are unique to each species.

Plants grow from the roots up, with the first cells originating beneath the soil, and it is almost magical the way they just seem to know to grow downward while the aerial parts of a plant know to grow upward. When a seed germinates, it simultaneously sends out both a fledgling rootlet and a pair of false leaves known as cotyledons. The root orients itself in the soil to seek out as much as moisture and as many nutrients as possible, while above the soil, the cotyledons eventually give way to the true leaves whose job it will be, with the sun's help, to manufacture food that the entire plant will need. Both parts of the new plant work in unison to support it toward the eventual goal of flower, fruit and seed production.

As I sat today looking at one of the tomato plants I have in a pot on the porch, I tried to imagine what is going on inside it. Is the process of cell development and enlargement actually visible, or does it happen in such infinitesimal degrees that it cannot be observed, and like so much else in nature, we simply have to believe that it's happening? For with each passing day, the plant's leaves are a bit higher against the railing and soon, they will surpass it entirely, at which point I'll have to tie it a little higher along the vine so it doesn't topple over. And then, without warning, I'll look one day and there will be the characteristic yellow blossoms indicating the spots where tiny green tomatoes will eventually appear, much to my eternal delight.

A plant grows in much the same way as do other living organisms-by cell production and enlargement. As new cells are formed, they fill with water drawn up into the plant through the roots. As they swell, they push the cells above them higher, causing the stem to elongate and grow. Some cells store water and others starches, and it is water that gives a plant its ability to stand upright and not keel over, a characteristic known in botanical circles as turgor or turgidity, which is the pressure the engorged cells exert on each other and on the stem walls. That's why a wilting plant seems to magically right itself once it's been given a drink, as the water floods the cells deep within the stem.

From the tiniest moss plant to the gigantic California redwoods, all plants follow this pattern of growth and development, each according to its own genetic code. Here, in these humble woods, I am reminded of that fact each time I look outside at my tomato plant and at the trees beyond, that never cease to amaze me in their variety, their tenacity and their eternal capacity to look ever upward.


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Incongruity

Sometimes, when I take a look around me, I try to imagine what this place looked like before the advent of modern technology, before culvert pipes redirected water through the soil and telephone wires crisscrossed the blue sky and leafy backdrop like enormous spider webs to convey messages quickly from one point to the next. Objects like the transformer on top of the electrical pole or a blue reflector marker poking out of the earth seem incongruous, unwelcome and superfluous additions to the landscape and that, at times, just don't seem to belong here in this place where just about everything else simply evolved from where it stands. Even my truck, sitting in the middle of the yard, offends me some days, and I wish I could just erase it so that it wouldn't spoil the view.

The rock walls, however, are a different thing entirely. Yes, they were placed there in their particular configurations by human hands. But being of and from the earth, they fit, plainly and simply, into their biers of leaves leftover from years long before I arrived, nestled into the soil as though they've been there forever, a living chain trailing through the woods. I never cease to be amazed at the industriousness it took to construct them, and to how well they have stood the test of time, delineating boundaries between farms and pastures, many of which the woods have since reclaimed.

Having taken many walks deep into these woods, I'm aware that it wasn't always so easy to navigate them before someone decided to blaze paths and wear wheel ruts through the undergrowth. In some places, I can see how it could have taken days to cover just a few miles, tangled as they are with low growth and branches, the ground littered with dead trees in some places or too mucky and bug-infested to traverse in others. It doesn't take long for nature to reclaim what is hers, as I discovered having blazed my own path through the woods behind the shed a few years ago and that is now only visible from the marks I left on the trees there. A mere year's worth of fallen leaves is enough to obliterate a trail and to render it once again invisible to anyone who didn't know it was there.

I am most saddened, however, by the debris I find whenever I walk down the dirt road, which is a legal right of way to the properties closer to the pond. Empty styrofoam coffee cups, beer cans, and other trash litter both sides, and at the foot of my driveway across the road, there is what appears to be the remains of an old dump where I've found rusted pails, jars, bottles, and other crockery, intact or in pieces, that clearly date back to an earlier time. Many autumns have come and gone since then, effectively burying the cache, but a few items still poke up through the soil once the snow melts away each spring. Judging by the types of things I've found there, my guess is that the spot once served as a dumping ground for whatever the locals no longer wanted, and nature did them a favor by camouflaging their detritus.

At least it's not all that visible unless I'm actually looking for it, which I do at times just to see what new treasures the earth's heavings may have uninterred. Unlike the other unsightly obvious things that are not of these woods, I can conveniently forget that it's there, shifting my gaze rather to the hazy panorama that is this place at the height of summer.


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