Winter

I am in love with the outdoors. The feeling of standing with snow below you, blue sky above, the sun in your face, and wind and birds in your ears is easiest to describe with the feeling of strong love. It’s overwhelming, inspiring, and completely uplifting.

The past several months, I have spent a lot of time outdoors observing and exploring the activities of the woods in the winter. A short walk through the woods can be completely silent, but the fresh snow tells so much. Deer bedded here last night, the turkeys found more leaves to scratch to, the fox was about again, a mink has been exploring the stream, a pack of coyotes travelled through, a mouse scurried from one log home to another, the squirrels are still running everywhere. And occasionally you get to catch a glimpse of another creature sharing the forest with you at that moment. A deer scared by your footsteps in the crunchy snow running along the top of the next ridge, a blue jay calling your arrival, an owl swooping away from his pre-dawn branch above the road, a chickadee puffed up to an absurd size to hide from the wind. It is a time of year when everything in the woods looks clean, but every activity is documented for all to see.

 

There are always signs that it is not always winter here. Chickadees seemingly confused on a warm day calling ‘see-me’, an old nest covered in the recent snow still sitting in its Hawthorne tree, the buds of next year’s leaves already present.

It’s a lot of work to walk in the woods this time of year, but it may be my favorite time to explore places I know, because everything changes, and there is a new story in the snow each day.