Woods Wanderer

A change in weather over the weekend reminded me that it gets cold here in Vermont – wicked cold. Temps dropped below zero, and my enthusiasm for a long-awaited hike on my day off dropped with it.

I awoke Monday morning to single digits. Warmer, but not warm. So I puttered about the house while the mercury climbed. By late morning it was 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Hmm… that would have to do. I put on four layers of wools and thermals beneath my shell and went out.

A town forest twenty minutes from home seemed like the place to go. I wasn’t in the mood to drive any farther than that. Commuting to work every day does that to you.

Told Judy before leaving the house that I’d be glad to be in the woods once I was there. That was true but the chill that came when I broke a sweat kept me from lingering. I walked about an hour through the forest, cutting tracks through several inches of fresh snow, then called it quits. Outside just long enough for my beard to ice over. No more.

My dog Matika would have stayed out longer. Tracks of deer, squirrel, field mouse, you name it – there was plenty to sniff. She ran back and forth through the snow like she was born to it. Yeah, she has a heavy winter coat as most long haired German shepherds do.

Had the place all to myself for an hour. That was nice. Enjoyed the way the sun broke through the trees when the clouds opened up, and the way the snow clung to the boughs of conifers when they didn’t. But it was just a tad too cold to reflect upon the wonders of wild nature any more than that.

Fixed cup of hot chocolate as soon as I got home, then thawed out. It wasn’t enough of a hike to blow away all my stinky, mid-winter thoughts, but it would have to do. For now, that is. Next time I have a day off from work and temps rise into the twenties, I’ll go out for a much longer walk.  No doubt Matika will be ready to roll when I do.

Tags: cold weather, hiking with dogs, Vermont, winter walking

Like many people, I am hypersensitive to the march of time whenever a new year begins. We switch out an old calendar for a new one, then try to get used to the novel digit. That’s “12,” not “11,” though some of us will be making this mistake well into February. The clock moves too fast for us.

Seems like the older I get, the busier I become. Not quite sure what that’s all about but I’ve noticed that I’m not the only one. A lot of older people I know complain about not having enough time, while many younger folks have enough of it to just “hang out.”

Last weekend my wife Judy and I visited her half brother who is well into his last days. I talk with my parents weekly to stay updated on their ailments. Recently I learned that a friend of mine is confined to a wheelchair. Others have their issues. I can count on one hand the number of friends my age who can hike a whole day with me. I’m getting the message loud and clear but don’t like it. Nothing in our youth-obsessed culture is helping me prepare for the inevitable. “Stay healthy,” the medical professionals advise, and that’s the end of it. Meanwhile, I keep getting older . . . as everyone does.

A couple months back, while I was hiking Wheeler Mountain, I looked over at Mount Pisgah with its sheer cliffs rising dramatically from Lake Willoughby. A couple decades ago, while I was working as a hiking guide, I slowly crept up that mountain with a 75-year-old man while the rest of our group dashed ahead. It took forever but eventually the septuagenarian and I reached the top. I marveled at it. To this day that remains the most inspiring thing I’ve ever witnessed. And I have it in my head to do the same thing and hike that mountain when I turn 75. That is, if I’m still upright and able to do so.

I do not so much fear death as I do the prospect of wasting precious years. I live like a condemned man nowadays. “How can I make best use of the time remaining?” I keep asking myself. Maybe that’s why I’m so busy. There’s no time to waste. My days are numbered. That distant summit isn’t so distant any more.

Tags: aging, the passage of time

Despite the fact that I was still tired from a tough shift at the hotel the evening before, I donned thermals and wools yesterday morning and went for a hike. Falling temps and a winter storm were in the forecast, so I figured this was my last chance to tramp around for a while. Besides, holiday hoopla had kept me indoors for the past couple weeks. I desperately needed to get outside.

I didn’t wander far from home. I’ve been spending too much time in the car lately so I drove no farther than necessary to reach the woods. A small patch of wild country only ten minutes away did the trick.

What started as a hike quickly turned into a bushwhack. I followed a logging trail to a yard full of lopped off tree limbs then stepped into trackless forest. Fine by me. Meandering about aimlessly suited my mood. I tramped through the snow-covered woods, stopping every once in a while to look around. I marveled at the way new fallen snow clung to tree branches. I saw some kind of weasel slip into the remnants of an old stone wall – a black flash against white. My dog Matika sniffed at fresh squirrel tracks. None appeared.

Just to stay oriented, I kept my eye on a large beaver pond clearly visible through the trees. Consequently, I ended up circumnavigating it. On the far side of it, I encountered a smaller beaver pond apparently blocking my path. It’s dam provided an easy way to the other bank, though. I like this about bushwhacking. The landscape tells you where to go.

During the rest of my walk I followed a soft, muddy logging trail covered by several inches of heavy, wet snow. More like early spring than early winter. I didn’t mind it. Breathing hard is good sometimes – a reminder that existence is fundamentally organic despite all abstract thought. There’s more to life than working, eating and indoor entertainment. That’s a good thing to keep in mind this time of year.

Tags: bushwhacking, hiking, nature in winter

I can’t help but think of the holiday hoopla as a distraction from the dark season. With the days brutally short, temperatures dropping and all the green gone, this is a tough time of year. So we drag evergreens into our houses, put up colorful lights, then engage in a series of elaborate rituals that keep us busy until we can get used to winter. I do it and I’m not even a Christian. Many of my nature-loving friends aren’t Christians either, yet we exchange greeting cards. Write it off to cultural pressure if you want, but the truth is that we all welcome the distraction. The days surrounding the Winter Solstice are hard to take.

There wasn’t time enough to get into the woods yesterday so my dog Matika and I did the next best thing. We went for a long walk on a nearby section of the Rail Trail. The naked trees clattered in a fierce wind. The ground underfoot was frozen solid, and the endlessly grey sky overhead provided no solace. Yet it felt good to get out and stretch the legs. Properly dressed, the chill wasn’t too bad.

From Ebeneser Scrooge to the Grinch, those who don’t embrace the holidays are held in low regard. And rightly so. It’s hard enough getting through these dark days without the extra negativity. There are frigid months ahead, so break out the sweets, strong spirits and good cheer. Whatever gets us through this darkness is a good thing.

Oh sure, there’s the hyper commercialism of Christmas to criticize, but what’s the difference between December and the rest of the year? Only the intensity. Fact is, we live in a consumer culture. Christmas is merely the grand finale – the climax to an orgy of spending that begins anew every January. Complaining about that is like complaining about sunlight . . . or the lack thereof.

No doubt I’ll be taking more winter walks in the weeks ahead. No doubt I’ll be daydreaming about the greener season while I’m slogging across snow and ice. But I wouldn’t want to live in the southern latitudes where the darkness is much less pronounced. This way I don’t take anything for granted, not even the sun rising.

Tags: seasonal change, walking, winter, winter solstice

During the balmy days of autumn, I stumbled upon a dozen or so woolly worms in various places, and studied them for some sign of the coming winter. The wider the brownish-red band, the milder the season or so the saying goes.

Well, it looks like it’s going to be a mild one this year.

I’m not a big one for folklore, and don’t really believe that tiger moth caterpillars can predict an entire season any better than our weather forecasters can. Yet I wonder what lies ahead. Right now, in the dismal light of December with a bone-chilling fog clinging to the barren, snowless landscape, the woolly worm prediction seems to be holding true. Will the trend continue?

Predicting the weather is difficult. Predicting an entire season even more so. Nature is chock full of omens but earth science is another matter altogether. The planet is a complex system. There is never enough information to say with absolute certainty what is going to happen in the near future. All we can do is make educated guesses. And climate change? There is always a need for more information when it comes to that. If we want to know all the facts before taking action, then we will be waiting indefinitely.

I don’t know to what extent human activity alters the climate. I don’t know how hard this winter is going to be. I don’t even know with absolute certainty what the weather is going to be like tomorrow. But I’ve noticed that such things aren’t quite as predicable as they used to be, woolly worms or no. So I wonder with with considerable apprehension what lies ahead.

Tags: climate change, folklore, science, seasonal change, weather

Every once in a great while, I go up to Aldis Hill to sit on a downed tree and just ponder matters. Usually I have a cigar in hand, which I smoke in celebration of some small accomplishment. In this case, I was celebrating the publication of the latest Wood Thrush Books anthology – no mean feat considering how busy I’ve been keeping myself lately. But maybe this celebration was just an excuse. It was an unseasonably warm day in late November and I badly needed to get out of the house.

Remnant patches of snow from an early winter storm remained on the ground despite several days of thawing temps. A pile of wood chips at the base of a dead tree caught my eye. Evidently some hungry critter had been digging there for bugs. I’m guessing a raccoon. My dog Matika watched intently as a squirrel ran the branches overhead. Some unseen bird squawked unrecognizably from a nest.  I couldn’t make it out in the twilight. The sun had set a half hour earlier, just as I had entered the woods.

My mind wandered as it does on such occasions. I congratulated myself for completing yet another literary task, pondered current projects, then considered what the future holds. Then I thought about matters on a grander scale: the people I know and love, and the human condition in general. It doesn’t take me long these days to leap from the personal to the universal. For better or worse, I’m in the habit of philosophizing.

Funny how these woods-sitting sessions of mine always end with a thanksgiving. I can’t help but count by blessings whenever I stop moving long enough to consider my place in the greater scheme of things. The pursuit of happiness breeds unhappiness, I think. Only when I stop and think about what I already have do I start feeling good.

I walked out in darkness, feeling my way along the trail.  A galaxy of city lights sparkled through the naked trees as I meandered downhill.  I delighted in it.  A half hour later, I was back home and busy doing things again.  But this time with relish.  I had been miserable about something earlier in the day, but couldn’t for the life of me recall what it was.

Tags: contemplation, happiness, thanksgiving

There are as many different ways to experience the wild as there are people to experience it. That’s the premise behind the latest anthology that I have put together and published through my small press, Wood Thrush Books. And I’m quite pleased with this one, despite all the delays that kept it from reaching print until now.

The Wildness Beyond is a collection of poems, essays, and short narratives as diverse as wild nature itself.  I doubt that any reader but me will like all the pieces is this anthology, but I’m sure that no one will set it aside saying it’s the same old thing. I tried to be as open-minded as possible when putting this book together, while still including some of my favorite writers hard at work in the small press world. If nothing else, this is a good sampler of the kind of cutting-edge nature writing being done today.

The Wildness Beyond showcases writers familiar to all you staunch WTB supporters out there: Walt Franklin, Benjamin Green, and Rob Faivre to name a few. It also includes work by Marianne Boruch, David Budbill, Scott King, Neil Shepard and others. Altogether there are twenty-one contributors in this slender volume, including something by yours truly. Yes, I was brash enough to include one of my own essays. Why not?

Sorry folks. You can’t buy this one with a click or two at either the Barnes and Noble or the Amazon websites. If you want a copy, you’ll have to go to all the trouble to send a check to me via snail mail. To find out more about this book and how to get one, go to woodthrushbooks.com. Or you can go elsewhere and order something much more predictable. It’s up to you.

Tags: anthology, nature writing, the wild, wood thrush books

Recreation. Making good use of a precious day off from work, I head for the hills to re-create myself. It’s a cool, sunny day in late autumn and everything I need is stuffed into the small rucksack on my back. I step into the woods, following a favorite stream deep into the Green Mountains. My dog Matika, wearing a blaze orange vest, bounds ahead of me all smiles. She’s just as happy as I am to be here.

It’s a hunter’s forest. A few brown and gold leaves still cling to branches but most of them are on the ground now. Slightly overdressed in thermals and wool shirt, I quickly break into a sweat. And yet I feel a chill in the air whenever I stop to catch my breath. Oh yeah, it’s that time of year.

It’s a hunter’s forest but I’m not hunting for anything in particular today – not game, not adventure, not deep thought. I have no agenda, really. I’m just out here to groove with the elements and forget about all that nonsense in the lowlands. It’s enough to simply move, to sweat, and occasionally rock-hop across the stream. And yet a moment comes when I start pondering the order and chaos of the natural world, wondering half consciously where the laws of nature come from. Then I stop and look around me in pantheistic ecstasy, convinced on the most visceral level that the universe is far from being random.

I recently read The God Delusion, a manifesto of atheism penned by a renowned biologist named Richard Dawson. I was deeply disappointed by it, as I am by most religious and anti-religious texts. Professed atheists do not take pantheism any more seriously than religious fundamentalists do. These two camps are too busy warring with each other to consider any other possibilities – namely that the laws of nature have to come from somewhere, that “god” and “nature” are different words for the same thing. A few pensive souls like myself speak up but we are quickly dismissed.  There is little room in most human minds for the obvious. Warring – the battle between good and evil – is so much more engaging.

“Let it go,” I tell myself, as I tramp through the woods. I didn’t come out here to think. I came out here today to leave all that nonsense behind. I came out here to groove with the wild, feel the truth of it, and reconnect with What-Is in a way that doesn’t translate into any kind of -Ism. So I whistle to Matika to follow as I change direction, rock-hopping across the stream one more time. By the end of the day, I will be re-created and ready to return to the lowlands.  But right now, I just want to worship nature in the simplest and most direct way possible.

Tags: nature, pantheism, reality, religion

Critics here in Vermont say that the huge wind turbines atop our beloved Green Mountains are not just an eyesore, they kill birds and disrupt the forest ecology as well. Solar power is viable as long as the sun is shining, but it’s expensive, isn’t it? Biofuels threaten our food supply. Hydro power screws up our streams. Coal and oil are both dirty, of course. Natural gas is clean, as fossil fuels go, but fracking pollutes the ground water. Nuclear power is both clean and cheap… until the plants leak and it’s time to shut them down. Burning wood is great until you run out of trees. So what does that leave? Tidal power? Hydrogen? Cold fusion?

Have to get our power from somewhere. There are seven billion people on the planet and counting. The demand for power is growing much faster in industrializing countries like India and China than it is in the highly consumptive West. In the near future, humanity will need more power, not less. So where are we going to get it?

Climate change is the sword of Damocles hanging over us. The more we mess with Mother Nature, the more she messes with us. It’s just a matter of time before all hell breaks loose. Can we avoid global catastrophe? Collectively we seem to lack the political will to do so. Besides, denial runs strong and deep among those who immediately benefit from the status quo, and they cast just enough doubt on the subject to keep the rest of us complacent.  More to the point, it’s hard for the average person to think beyond what he or she is paying at the gas pump.

So what are we to do? Gnash our teeth and say we’re all doomed? Protest our least favorite energy source? Blame those whose economies are stronger than ours? Simply ignore the situation?

Clearly we have plenty of choices, there’s just no perfect solution. The big question is this: Do we have moral courage enough to make the best possible choices for our great grandchildren? I’ll leave that for you to ponder, dear reader, and keep my cynicism to myself.

Tags: choices, climate change, environmentalism, global warming, globalism, human nature, renewable energy, social change, the environment, the human condition

It’s that time of year again.  The leaves are turning and tourists are streaming into Vermont.  Or has it passed already?  The foliage season is fast and furious, often leaving folks with the feeling that they’ve missed the better part of it.  That is why I made it a point to walk the Rail Trail several times during the past few weeks, camera in hand.  I wanted proof that I was there when the colors peaked.

Too warm, too dry, too much green this year.  Those were the common complaints.  A run of cloudless days made a lot of people happy, but the autumnal brilliance didn’t quite live up to the advertisement.  Mother Nature was off her game this year.  Not that many snapshots of blazing leaf color were taken.  Not as many “oohs” and “ahs” as usual.

A few days ago, the chilling October rains began.  Then a rowdy wind knocked some leaves off the trees prematurely.  Oh sure, there is still plenty of color – especially here in the Champlain Valley – but the season is past peak now.  And it won’t be long before all the trees are naked.  Like springtime, when the wildflowers bloom, this season is brutally short.

While walking the other day, it struck me how marvelous the world is – peak color or no.  Every day there is something special to see and feel.  And smell.  What I like most about autumn is the smell of fallen leaves drying out and rotting slowly.  Here’s the smell of eternity.  Here’s sensual proof of endless growth and decay.  But that can’t be packaged, can it?  I find this thought consoling.  It’s nice to know there’s at least one thing about the season that can’t be bought and sold.

Tags: fall foliage, seasonal change, walking