A Patient Artist

Finally some really cold weather settled into the Piedmont of North Carolina…for a couple days anyway. And by “really cold” I mean it stayed below freezing for 45 whole hours. If you live in Florida, that sounds cold. If you live in Minnesota, that sounds like spring.

I wanted to see some ice-rimmed river-water…you know, for proof it is actually winter here. From the bedroom window, the creek looked to be running free, trickling over the rocks, not frozen in time. A short drive downtown, near the few folks shivering at the farmers market, I sought the edges of the Eno. The footpath crunched under my boots. Much of the Eno flowed quiet and free. A reminder that our winter is not fierce.

The last time I had walked the path to the Indian fields it was early Spring. The trees were bare then as now. Much looked the same. I have missed two seasons along this route. I missed the spiders, the mosquitoes, and the poison ivy. Now, as I crunched down the path, looking for ice, I realized it is a good time to be out. A muskrat hole, usually hidden under a low tangle of briers, became exposed as warm moist air escaped the depths to condense and hang amongst the brambles…an icy chandelier marking the hole. I saw several of these, but no muskrats. I continued down the path, stepping beside deer tracks in the frozen mud.

Then finally I reached a stretch of slow water in the shadow of a north facing bluff. Here the ice held anchor to a river rock and jutted thinly into the cool current. Winter is a patient artist.

White Tufted Hemlock Groves

I got to play Mountain Man this Christmas! Honestly, I was just playing. We spent a week up in Pennsylvania with 8 inches of snow and a fire in the fireplace 24/7. I fantasize about that life, don’t you? No? Maybe? Well, the jolly old fellas who wrote Jingle Bells and White Christmas sure did. And since they crafted all those cleverly cozy rhymes along with rolling melodies, and then finally hooked up with the Hallmark Company, I’ve been suckered since childhood.

I don’t think it’s only the music’s fault though. I probably have to blame...err, thank Marty Stouffer of Wild America. As a restless kid I could sit on the couch in front of the TV in Oklahoma with a warm bowl of spaghettios on my lap and simultaneously track an elusive wolverine through the deep snows of the Rocky Mountains. I’m not sure why it appealed so much to me other than for the grand imagination of childhood, together with the mystical footage of far off (to me) wild lands. Though it was probably due to some subliminal marketing scheme, or simply Marty’s mildly patriotic, wide eyed parting salutation to “Enjoy Our Wild America!”

So I find myself now, always giddy at the first hint of prolonged cold and snow. Being on vacation helps deepen the satisfaction. I don’t have to get up early in the morning if I don’t want to. Or I can get up early, track a few wolverines, then come home and sleep in front of the fireplace for the rest of the day.

On this trip, we did it all: Hiked in early morning snow, followed deer trails through fields, huddled under white tufted hemlock groves, flew down snow-packed roads on wooden sleds, crafted grapevine wreathes collected from the thick woody hedges, watched wild grouse cross the street, made snow angels, made snowmen, knocked old apples out of the trees for the deer to eat, stood on the high ridge overlooking the valley, and fed a steady supply of seasoned hardwood into the stoves to light and warm our loft.

I acknowledge it as play. I did not toil and labor on the land we wandered. Not this time. Someone else had before me. Thank you.

But Yet I Keep Looking

A few notes this January:

1. This blog is one year old this January 2009. Which means I've covered one cycle of seasons. Which in North Carolina, USA, is four seasons, each distinct enough to provide enough inspiration for diverse commentary, if I'm paying attention.

2. As Joni Mitchell sang "the seasons, they go round and round", and you can probably expect similar observations from me this year.

3. I try to make this interesting, at least to me, so I'll try to point out some unique observations...though I might repeat myself. I mean really, I can look at the same stuff over and over again, even seemingly boring stuff, and still be amused. Heck I could look at a campfire every night of the week and remain entranced for hours. And what really could I write to distinguish the physical properties of each of those fires? Not much. But yet I keep looking. And so I write in order to figure out why I keep looking.

Happy New Year

Moonlight and a Companion

We found ourselves quietly jostled with strangers, under the moonlight, in a creaking wooden wagon pulled by two shadowy mules. We puffed warm breaths skyward through the bare branches. A candlelight tour, an old homestead, and unseen sounds. Dark, cold winter draws near.

I enjoy Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain each winter for the comfort of his imagery. Much of the lead character’s homeward southern odyssey is under the cover of darkness. The darkness brings Inman security. He moves as a shadow in a shadowy time, alone with his longing for home and beloved.

Our recent evening outing reminded me of Inman and of night walking. Can it be done?
It would be nice to share a quiet trail with the moonlight and a companion or the thoughts of a companion. The moon will be full this weekend and I have a place in mind.

Measure of Success

A sunny meadow on a rolling hill, edged in evergreen fence-row cedars, on a cold November afternoon: This was the setting for my mission. The mission: Delight in the close up viewing of a foraging Cedar Waxwing through the lenses of my trusty childhood binoculars. Before I get too far into the setup and description, I should probably tell you that my mission sort of failed. Not that I didn’t delight in wonderful views…they just didn’t include any Cedar Waxwings.

This mission’s genesis was sparked earlier in the week when an office-mate revealed, with her usual glee, that a certain rare winter visitor had made a brief and unexpected stop at her bird feeder. Now, I’ve never seen a Cedar Waxwing at our feeders, and have seen only one fly quickly through our yard a couple years ago. They aren’t common around this part of North Carolina (or if they are, they are very sneaky). I didn’t really accept my mission until this morning as I was in bed thumbing through Sibley’s bird behavior guide, when I happened across the Waxwing section and thought “Oh yeah, I should go find one of those!” Heather was up for an outing and so we decided on the Ayr Mount property near town. She would bring a novel and a coffee, and I would bring my binoculars. She would sit in the sun, on top of the hill in an Adirondack and I would sit…or stand, or crouch or lay anywhere in sight of a berry-loaded red cedar. WE BOTH would be bundled against the chill. And for almost two hours this is what we did.

My mission took me down the grassy hills, through well-trimmed pine thickets, beside the willow-pond and eventually back up the gentle slope to Heather. I walked slowly. My gloved hands alternated possession of the bulky binoculars. The shell of my jacket hood shielded the wind gusts and muffled all exterior sound. Pulling the hood back, I could listen for nearby calls, before tugging it snugly over my cold ears. I found a sunny perch below the base of a Hackberry tree and so lounged back into the soft, tufted grass. Resting on warm earth, I scanned the hedges.

The search for birds is a lesson in optics, both ocular and binocular. You must shift your focus or you really can’t “see the forest for the trees,” or in this case the birds for the trees. So I first looked at the broad view with only my eyes to catch the small stirrings of motion, the flicker of feathers, before swinging the big lenses up for a zoom. When you have this privilege of supersight you can get lost in the details.

I allowed myself to get lost in those other non-Waxwing details flitting and flying into the periphery. As a gray squirrel, snug against a trunk, quivered its tail, I could see the emotion in his eyes. A yearling brood of blue birds danced with each other and darted around their old home. The dark crows, casting shadows below, glided up to the treetops and mocked me just a little. And thus my mission failed, though with a pleasant measure of success. Remember to measure your successes (don’t skimp). By the way, Heather thinks she saw a Cedar Waxwing as she looked up from her page into the tree overhead. I’ll be heading back there soon.

Cold Feet

“To go or not to go?” That was the question. Well that was part of the question. “To go canoeing early Sunday morning on a section of river not easily navigated at low water on a cool fall morning, with a short window of time?” That was the bigger question. Would we get cold feet or…get cold feet? The adventurous spirit prevailed and we decided to give it a go.

It was Heather’s first time on what I’ll call the lower section. It is the “Suburban Hillsborough” section of the Eno which meanders by the long backyards of the in-town homes. It was my fourth time along the route, though first with company. A loaded boat will not pass smoothly at normal water levels here. Two people make a loaded boat in this case. We packed light: camera, paddles, and a bucket of shoes. Yep, a bucket of shoes. Knowing that our feet would get wet, but not knowing if we would need to portage around fresh snags or hike up a steep bluff, we each brought hiking shoes and water sandals…and we used both.

It ended up being a mild adventure with no major unexpected obstacles (although the look on Heather’s face said otherwise when I almost tipped her out of the red boat as I clumsily tried to climb back in while losing my footing in a suddenly deep pool of water). We paddled calm stretches of flat water, snapped photos of falling leaves and mirrored canopies, walked and dragged the shallows (after awhile your feet don’t feel anything!) and eventually glided to a quiet stop up the mouth of a downtown feeder creek.

Cold feet warm up eventually.

Find Your Peak

There was a light steady breeze outside the window as I was writing this. The sound was a rustling of leaves. As I watched the descending flutter, I thought back to midweek when I had mentioned to Heather my observation that fall color had peaked at precisely 1:40 pm on Wednesday as I was driving between Chapel Hill and Hillsborough NC. That got a good laugh…which was mostly the objective. However, I wasn’t completely making it up. I didn’t think it could have been more picturesque than at that very moment. Of course I was wrong.

But isn’t that what we do? We declare and define. Heck, we post Fall Color Timetables in our local newspapers and on the Weather channel. We are often wrong but usually only by degrees. I kind of like that way of thinking and planning as it relates to nature. If it gets people excited about the outdoors I’m for it. (I’m not necessarily for being behind a long slow line of RVs trudging up the winding inclines of the Blue Ridge Mountains…but when I get up to the lookouts I’m more forgiving)

This Autumn, Heather and I got to see the colors change in six states thanks to our visit with her parents in Pennsylvania. There, fall settled roughly 3 weeks ahead of North Carolina. Such stark regional differences remind me of the diversity of place both near and far. They were dotted with ruby reds while we were aglow in yellows. The differences were obvious but now I'm noticing our similarities too.

As I made my way home later in the day this past Wednesday, I turned the corner at the base of Occoneechee Mountain where there, overlooking the still-green field, shivered a candy-red maple at its peak of color at 4:42 pm.
Find your peak of beauty…then find another one!