The trees are still mostly bare. Branches fallen in the stream are still coated with ice. But one little sapling over on the right side of the frame just couldn’t wait any longer.
For me, the best part of walking in the woods this week was something I couldn’t capture in a picture – the sweet, damp, musky smell of decay. For the first time in months, the woods smelled like the woods.
We’ve been enjoying an early taste of spring this week – a few days of record breaking warmth before winter reasserts itself. Each night the evening news has featured at least one story about someone who ventured out on the thinning ice of a pond or river, fell through, and had to be rescued. Apparently, this impulse is not confined to people. This pooch wandered out onto a local pond, only to have the ice give way under his rear paws. Since he was in shallow water just a few yards from shore, he wasn’t really in any danger. But he didn’t know that. He couldn’t be convinced to let go and paddle back to shore. Finally, his owner gave up, waded into the icy muck, and pulled him out.
It seems as though everyone in this part of the world is more than ready for spring to arrive. I’m also eager to get out on my bike again. And this year’s garden plan has been sketched out and waiting for weeks. But the photographer part of me is a little sad to see winter melt away.
He brought his own, and ate it al fresco.
A pair of towering cedars frame the front of our house, the gift of a previous owner. They have stood impassively through countless winter storms, secure in the knowledge that the sun will return to melt the snow collected on their branches. I’m beginning to see that I could learn a lot from trees.
Snow and late afternoon sun dress up the gray winter woods.
Last week a blast of Arctic air froze Ware’s Cove solid, bringing out scores of skaters of all ages – some with two legs, some with four.
Walking in the woods last week, I came across a fallen tree, snagged on a neighbor several feet off the ground. Suspended above the moist, bustling metropolis of the forest floor, the trunk had dried out and cracked open, revealing colors and shapes reminiscent of the canyons of the American West.
*Title of song by the band Chicago (1969)
“So you haven’t understood yet” Rambert shrugged his shoulders almost scornfully.
“Understood what?”
“The plague.”
“Ah!” Rieux exclaimed.
“No, you haven’t understood that it means exactly that – the same thing over and over and over again.”
-from The Plague by Camus
Hopefully by now we have all accepted the necessity of wearing masks. But that doesn’t mean we have to like them. Though I have to admit, since the onset of winter, I’ve been enjoying that they keep my nose warm. Still, there’s this other problem that no amount of adjustment seems to fix.
