Frost coated grass crunched under my boots as I strode through the back yard heading to the beaver pond. In the dim predawn light dark shapes moved by the compost bin; deer feeding on the grass, maybe stretching into the bin to snatch bits of discarded lettuce and fruit peels. As I came closer I heard their hooves click as they clattered over the old flagstone wall and disappeared in the woods. Bands of red and orange inched above the…
Ice covered Prompton Lake; thin clear ice sprinkled with snowflakes along the shoreline, a vast milky-white sheet of thick ice over the middle decorated with scattered snow-swirls. From a tall pine near the shore a white-breasted nuthatch, perched on the trunk, greeted me with its reedy, yank, yank, yank call. I walked across the boat ramp parking lot to the West Shore Trail, glanced ahead and saw a shallow furrow of frozen mud winding through the woods. Crunching along the…
In the wind-shelter of an island of tall reeds, I pivoted the kayak around, and began my return journey down the Assateague Channel. Now, the stiff northeast breeze sailed me down the channel and the ebbing tide flowed in my favor. An occasional easy stroke with the paddle was all that was needed to stay on course. The sun broke through the thick, gray early November clouds and I savored its warmth on my face and chest. The waves splashed…
Two crows cawed softly in the distance, the first bird calls of the morning, the first sounds to pierce the cloak of predawn silence that enveloped the vast Pisgah National Forest. I paused, listened, and felt a smile spread across my face. What was it about crows cawing that made me smile? Was it a sense of familiarity, the realization that where ever I go in nature I always hear crows somewhere in the background? Or was it the…
Quietly, I opened the kitchen door of the old farm house, stepped down two well-worn concrete steps, past the old stone well house and into a circle of illumination cast by a bright fluorescent farm light. Crunching across a grass overgrown gravel driveway, I strode by a dark red barn and a rounded concrete silo foundation, all of it barely visible in the predawn light. I continued across the dew-wet grass of an abandoned pasture and reached my destination, a…
I watched the blue water of the San Joaquin River flow through Lost Lake Park, swiftly moving water on a long journey from the Sierra Nevada Mountains down thru the Central Valley, on to San Francisco Bay to eventually merge with the Pacific Ocean. The quick current created surface swirls that spun downstream like miniature whirl pools only to be reabsorbed. Fluffy white seed streamers, like milkweed or cottonwood seeds, sailed up stream just above the surface of the water…
A flotilla of geese, large and dark, their white chin straps barely visible in the pre-dawn light, drifted slowly away from the stony bank of the abandoned boat launch at White Oak Pond. A quick tally revealed more than twenty-five, a flock well augmented by a fully grown, new generation. The geese paddled out toward open water, moving steadily and effortlessly, tracing soft Vs across the placid surface of the pond. Perhaps they had spent the night in the safety of…
Wet, dew covered grass muffled the sound of my footsteps as I walked down the wide mowed path toward the old beaver pond. Young brown rabbits, plentiful this summer, nibbled on green grass and scampered away at my approach. Ahead I saw the full rounded form of trees rising above the early morning mist. There was something evocative about the shapes of the trees in full summer growth, something compelling about the form of branch upon branch, leaf upon leaf,…
A push of the paddle against the bank and the kayak floated free into narrow Dyberry Creek. Another push brought the boat to mid-stream where the fluid fingers of the current wrapped around the hull and began to carry it downstream. Dim, early morning light surrounded me. Wispy gray mist floated above the water. The temperature hovered at a chilly 45 degrees. Suddenly, a clump-island of tall grass with narrow channels on either side loomed menacingly. Quick decision made I…
Darkness and silence enveloped the world outside my tent. A sound roused me from deep sleep. I lay still in my sleeping bag, listened, heard a faint hesitant “chirp” followed by a stuttering “chur-chur,” kind of like a musical motor trying to come to life. Seconds later a rich song filled the air; the clear, resonant, melodic, “cheerily, cheer-up, cheerily, cheer-up” of the morning’s first robin. I checked my watch, 4:10, an hour and a half before sunrise and still…