February is when I really start missing the smell of tomatoes. Ripe tomatoes for sure, but also the smell of the vines as you tie them off on stakes. Market tomatoes have never captured the essence of fresh summer tomatoes. Better than nothing? Sometimes nothing is better. This was all triggered by a Caprese salad, with the basil dominating the senses, the olive oil and balsamic drizzle playing complimentary roles, but the tomato was a silent partner; like white bread it had no soul. Such is February in New England: the senses get shorted.
A mild winter so far doesn’t translate into the garden. There’s still 3 inches of frozen snow clamped down in the lawn, the garden and the pool, like a hand over the mouth whispering ominously; not yet. Precipitation forecasted for the day includes the “wintry mix” we all hate. Rain or snow? We’ll deal with that. Wintry mix? Make up your mind already!
But there’s light at the end of the tunnel. The days are longer, there are lawn mowers and seeds on display in hardware stores, and the first day of Spring is four weeks away. February is flying right by, the way the rest of life does. It’s only a matter of time before the soil warms up and unlocks the smells of spring. In the meantime, there’s always a greenhouse or two to explore to get that flower fix. But tomatoes are going to be awhile here in New England. Part of living here, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it.
The math adds up, mostly. When you walk 4.25 miles in one direction on a rail trail, you should get the same number coming back in the other direction. Except that I took a couple of detours on the walk north, exploring side paths that I’ve previously marched right by. This wasn’t a timed walk, it was all about being outside, alone with the ice. Well, mostly alone; there were the seven other people I saw, shufflers every one. The iciness of the rail trail made it unsafe for walking without micro spikes strapped into your hiking shoes, but crunchy ease with them.
That crunchiness. The quiet solitude made the crunch, crunch, crunch of my every step echo off the frozen landscape, and I paused now and then to listen to the stillness I was disrupting with my walk. The crunch was caused by my micro spikes biting into the two inches of frozen carpet atop the rail trail, sprinkled on top with bits of broken ice accretion fallen off the branches above as the trees shrugged off last week’s icy embrace. Snowflakes drifted silently to the ground, not in an accumulating way but in a complete the scene way. I welcomed them and noted their progress along with my own.
The ice crunch was my companion the entire afternoon, the chatty hiking partner with a lot to say, but not the only ice talking to me. The ponds on either side of me also spoke, in sustained, low rumbles and pops as the ice sheet on the ponds came alive in the relative warmth of the sun. For those in places where ponds don’t freeze, it’s a fascinating rumble, almost like a serpent is brushing against the icy ceiling, looking for a place to break free. It’s particularly exhilarating when you’re standing out in the middle of that frozen pond, with your body weight adding to the groaning of the ice. These are days when you forget the rest of the madness in the world, and it’s just you and the ice.
I reached the depot on the north end of my walk, looked around a bit, seeing only two cars in the parking lot and knowing the three people who they belonged to whom I’d see on my return south. And I began the four mile walk back, walking with purpose, focused on getting back in a little more than an hour. That’s a good clip marching on ice, but my meandering was for the northward leg of my walk; it was time to accelerate on the return. Frozen footprints in the ice make fast walking challenging and a bit dangerous in the middle of the rail trail, and getting injured alone two miles from help wouldn’t do at all, but the sides of the trail were generally footprint-free and I made the desired progress. Walking for speed offers a different reward than meandering, this was more workout, less pondering the world. But I made it back to the southern parking lot pleasantly surprised by my speedy pace, finding my car alone in the icy parking lot, patiently waiting for its own chance to move.
Ice offers its own rewards, if you’ll only look for it. This winter has been uncommonly warm, and the ice was a welcome return to winter for me. A well-prepared walk on a frozen carpet of wonder, surrounded by ice sculptures and rumbling ponds. That’s the February Sunday afternoon I’d been hoping for, an exclamation mark on the weekend and a chance to pivot into the week with a clear head.
Frozen pond with a lot to sayIce sculptures change daily on the trailBroken bits of ice accretion sprinkle the landscape. These still show the curve from the branches they hugged
“What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare? —
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.”
– William Henry Davies
Life is surely for living and getting things done. And yet it would be meaningless without a healthy dose of looking at the world in wonder. If this daily exercise in blogging has done anything beyond strengthening a habit, it’s prodded me to look at the world in new ways. It’s not like I was closed-minded before, but writing seems to widen the path just as Instagram and an iPhone got me looking at flowers and sunrises differently.
But what do you drop for this new perspective? Does the mind expand? Sure, I’ll go with that. But does it expand from the writing or from the experiences you’re adding to fuel the writing? Does it matter?
This morning my cat and I are looking out the window at the steady stream of birds going to the feeders and poking about on the dormant shrubs and vines, looking for leftover berries and seeds or a bit of shelter from predators like the one sitting with me. The cat’s interest is betrayed by her tail swatting me in the head as each bird or squirrel comes onstage. My interest is more subtle, but it’s there just the same. Winter is not the barren landscape people think it is; life goes on all around us. Putting a feeder out surely pulls in more of that life than there would otherwise be. Writing is like that feeder, and it gets filled with observations, poems and quotations and strung-together thoughts. And just like the bird feeder the writing pulls life out of an otherwise barren landscape of a more closed mind.
Up again for another slow dance with caffeine, I look out the window and notice a doe a hundred meters out in the woods, seemingly staring back at me. Scanning the woods I see a few others scraping at the snow looking for acorns or other edibles. But this doe seems to be looking right in the window at me. Standing and staring, just like me. Beauty’s glance, right there in the woods, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to see it. And that’s life, one moment of beauty at a time amongst the stark and barren. You just have to look for it.
I watched a pair of turkeys walk through the woods, hop the fence and beeline right for the bird feeders, where the buffet of dropped seed from smaller birds is readily available. As they walked across the frozen backyard one of the turkeys slipped on the icy ground, jerked awkwardly and recovered. “Nothing to see here”, it seemed to say. I did a similar move yesterday in dress shoes on a patch of ice. It seems I’m not the only turkey trying to walk on ice.
Once, wild turkey were a novelty here, perhaps twenty years ago, or so. You’d see them now and then, but now…. To see thirty turkey dominate the front yard? Gobbling and bickering, like they own the place? Commonplace. And so is the evidence of their visit, in tracks all over the yard and turkey turds everywhere. No, this won’t do. When Bodhi was alive he’d keep these turkey at bay, but nowadays there’s no deterrent for them. My yard has become free range for poultry.
I suppose others thought the same thing when we moved in, acting like we owned the place. Cutting down trees, putting up sheds and fences and dropping swimming pools into the ground. Our tracks are more permanent than these other turkeys. So who am I to complain about these characters coming into my yard? It’s only mine because a bank and lawyers say it’s mine. I’m just a turkey with a mortgage. These other turkeys? They might just be smarter than me.
Yesterday morning I stood outside, barefoot, on the deck scanning the woods. A dozen deer were moving silently through, silhouetted by the sun reflecting off the rapidly melting snow. Unusually warm weather has created this opportunity to stand barefoot for me, and given the deer access to acorns and other edibles that should be locked into a frozen vault for a couple more months. The deer don’t worry about climate change, only food and safety, and they graze uninterrupted as I walked back inside.
Late morning we met friends for a walk on the Windham Rail Trail. The trail changes every day, and today brought slush mixed with large bare spots. We discussed using micro-spikes, but they would’ve been overkill on most of the trail, with just one section of about 100 meters testing our decision to leave them in the car. No, this was a day for water-resistant footwear, good socks and focus on where you stepped next. The week ahead brings more mild temperatures, and it’s likely this trail will be all pavement by next weekend.
As usual on this trail, there were many animal tracks crossing this way and that. Wildlife has their own trail system, but crossing paths with human roads and trails is inevitable. Deer tracks mixed with turkey, squirrels and the other regulars. But one set of tracks stood out from the rest; like a small child doing handstands across the snow, beaver tracks punctuated the softening snow. Their front paws are very defined and human-life. The back paws are more like a ducks. The combination convinced me it wasn’t a racoon’s tracks we were looking at. Beaver don’t hibernate, but they usually aren’t moving about that much this time of year. Looking around there was no apparent evidence of tree damage from beaver, but we were right next to a pond. Beaver store their winter food underwater near their nest. Nest building isn’t a winter activity. So I wondered what the beaver was traveling through here for. Visiting friends? Booty call? Or like me earlier just stepping outside to see what was new in the world?
Yesterday was a big news day with the death of Kobe Bryant. Social media and traditional media alike erupted in a flurry of reaction. It’s a jolt when someone so young and vibrant is killed so abruptly. Stoicism points out that it could happen to any of us at any moment, so live this moment fully. So many forget that until a famous person or a loved one shocks the system with a reminder. Living this moment starts with awareness of everything around you, feeling the changes in the air, seeing the deer moving through the woods, seeing the tracks in the snow, and having an extended conversation with people you care about while you navigate a slushy trail. Life is now, today, whether it’s a Monday morning or a Friday night. Bryant, and the other people on that helicopter were taken unexpectedly, tragically, but they were living a full life. If you aren’t fully alive in this moment, fully aware of the magic around you, are you really living?
As we left the trail yesterday, our own tracks marched along for 3 1/2 miles in one direction and back again, covering seven full miles of conversation, observation, exercise and being alive. Many of those tracks were turning to slushy mush even as we took them, and disappeared with the thousands of other tracks that have walked this path over the years. Our time here is limited, the memories are made now, so what shall we do with this day before it too disappears?
Walking this morning on Cape Cod I saw turkey tracks in the snow. The funny thing about turkey tracks is they look like arrows, pointing this way and that, as if to tell you to Go here! No, go there! Turkey walk in circles looking for food, and their tracks point you, if you tried to follow the “arrows”, towards the same madness. It’s a wonder of confusion and I smiled at the sight of it.
I’m glad I walked early, because overnight snow didn’t stand a chance on the edge of Buzzards Bay, where the ocean moderates temperatures as easily as it moderates moods. Looking at the temperatures in New Hampshire, there was a 21 degree difference between the hills up north and Cape Cod. 100 miles and 200 feet of elevation make a big difference between order and chaos when you’re talking snow.
If turkey tracks are scattered madness, the surf line offers a measure of predictability, for even on its own erratic path it still runs roughly parallel. The surf line finds its own path, curving and cutting this way and that based on the push of the swell, the contour of the sand and the strength of the breeze. The funny thing about the surf line is that it looks similar whether you’re up close on a quiet pre-dawn beach on Buzzards Bay or flying 1000 feet above the New Hampshire coast in a Piper Cub. Up close very different. Add the right distance and the mind tricks you.
We’re incredibly lucky now, with these great leaps across time and space. Anything is possible, really, in our timelines in this time. Yesterday I woke up in Ithaca, New York, watched a college basketball game in Rhode Island, and went to sleep on Cape Cod. This morning I walked on the beach and this afternoon I was shoveling snow back in the hills of New Hampshire. I could easily be in London or California or some other place for breakfast tomorrow morning if time, money and responsibilities allowed. Quick leaps between here and there are possible, which makes the world a magical place.
I run into a lot of people who march along a pretty straight line in their lives, not straying far from home, going to the same job every day, taking the same vacation to the same place for a week or two every year. I’ve tried that line, and it’s not me. Granted, you don’t want to be a turkey moving about in circles with no rhyme or reason to where you’re going. But what’s the fun in traveling a straight path from here to there? Don’t be a turkey, play along the surf line! Follow your own path as it meanders along, but with an eye towards the destination. You’ll still get from here to there, but the path will be a lot more interesting.
There’s nothing like a long walk to sort things out and help you forget about the madness in the world. Last week New Hampshire received a few inches of heavy, wet snow. Once walked upon, slushy snow becomes a clutter of footprints. Let it freeze and that snow becomes a crunchy, treacherous mine field. And such was the state of the Windham Rail Trail on my Sunday walk. Micro spikes over hiking boots answered most of the challenge, and a little care on where you stepped solved the rest. A long walk alone became crunchy meditation, with a good workout as a bonus.
About three miles into the walk I came across a column of deer tracks crossing perpendicular to the rail trail. Nothing surprising in that; this is deer country here in Southern New Hampshire after all. But I found the tracks fascinating anyway. The deer walked in a line like Native American warriors or Roger’s Rangers would have done when this area was contested frontier. In the case of warriors and rangers it masks the numbers from the adversary. I wondered if the deer instinctively mask their numbers or just follow the leader to minimize the calorie burn of moving through snow. The latter makes sense, doesn’t it? In winter where calories equal survival efficiency in movement means everything.
For me the goal was just the opposite of the deer: burn as many calories as possible in two hours of walking and be outdoors as an active participant in winter. Mix in a visually interesting trek on rough terrain and this afternoon’s 10,000 (+!) steps scored a high bliss rating. And who doesn’t need more bliss in the short, dark days of January?
Dark and quiet street, with sleet falling lightly, providing a soundtrack for only me. This isn’t dent your car sleet, rather it’s the granular bits of ice that tickle your nose as they bounce off it kind. The granules gently ricochet off every surface until finding a resting place. The sleet makes different sounds based on what it makes impact on. Dead oak leaves that refuse to let go their grip on the tree they sprouted from offer a snare drum, while other hard surfaces give a chorus of thousands of tinny taps. My feet make short work of the ice granules with their own steady beat; “crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch...” and on it went until I retired to the house. The sound of sleet followed me inside. It was just what I needed to hear.
It’s the morning of Christmas Eve, and the creatures are stirring. This morning I watched the horses run free on the snowy fields beyond the woods. Closing the trunk of my car, I spooked a dozen deer I hadn’t seen between those horses and me. We don’t always see what’s right in front of us.
On mornings like this I’m grateful to live here, even as the area changes with more development encroaching on the woods and fields I take for granted. Southern New Hampshire is changing. There’s been so much development in the three towns around me that they’re piping in water from reservoirs to the north to keep up with rising demand. Politicians celebrate the increased tax revenue of Plus 55 housing that comes without the hit on the school budget that more families would bring. So conservation is an uphill battle. You either fight development or you look the other way. Unfortunately I tend to look the other way, focusing instead on career and family. But the people who get things done find a way. It’s all priorities and focus, isn’t it?
Open land is like the deer I saw this morning. You’re so focused on other things that you don’t notice what’s right in front of you until it’s too late. As I’ve referenced before, they’re paving paradise to put up a parking lot. I’m already missing what’s gone. So what am I going to do about the rest?
I wonder what the Mourning Dove says to the squirrel as they both dine at the seed buffet dropped from the feeders to their feet. They both look around timidly, ready to dart to safety from threats real and imagined. But they’ve learned to coexist with each other, knowing deep inside that this other species isn’t a threat to me. Other birds – Chickadees, Jays, Cardinals – drop seeds to the ground as they sift for that special treat for themselves (or maybe as a nod to those below), and the ground feeders take over from there. They seem to take care of each other even as they compete for the same food. But they don’t look at each other as food and maybe when you’re both on the same link in the food chain that’s enough.
The coating of snow offers little in the way of camouflage for the parade of animals that move through the woods behind the house. Protected land close to a stream is a refuge during hunting season, and a bridge between wild places the rest of the year. Standing in front of the window, invisible to wildlife, that snow offers a spotlight on the animals that move through the woods. This morning three deer moved quietly by, nuzzling the snow aside in search of acorns. They’ve come to the right place and find plenty to nibble on before quietly moving on in a pattern of walk, nuzzle, eat, pop head up searching for threats, repeat. A month ago there were ten deer walking this route, and I wonder if the cold or the hunters got the rest, or if these are just other transients moving down the wooded safe route.
The other day I watched fourteen turkey walk through the woods in a tactical formation the Marines would be proud of, each assessing threats, stopping to see what was available to eat, moving forward with precision. I wondered how long it would be before they found the feeders, and of course I should have known they already knew about them, they were just approaching with full situational awareness. In a few minutes the turkeys running point were scratching the snow and nibbling seed, soon others joined them, but never more than a half dozen at a time in one spot. The rest occupied the perimeter, with a couple rotating in now and then. Turkey pecking order was on display, and I wished I’d had a better camera with me than my iPhone offered. But there’s no coexisting with turkeys, and the squirrels and Mourning Doves steered clear until the turkeys moved on.
This is my version of New Hampshire, at the edge of the woods on the day after the shortest day of the year, as viewed from behind the window pane. The days are getting longer now, and I look forward to getting back outside on warm days, observing this world from outside. But I know it would be different when I’m out there, as some wildlife avoid humans. So this view offers something you don’t get outside, and today I appreciate the difference.
