WINTER IS HERE!

I forgot how it feels to trudge through seven inches of fresh snow.  Guess it's been a while and I'm getting older as I find myself waddling slowly through the woods with my winter boots and snow pants on this afternoon, the third to the last day of December.

Today is the day after the first real snow storm of the season, and I think our woods needs a visit.  I make my way along the trail to Tom's Creek and then over to the northwest passage where I plunk myself down under an old red oak tree near the edge of the tamaracks and pull out my journal and pencil, with camera on call.

The most striking thing that I notice while sitting here is the sheer calmness that accompanies this new blanket of pure white snow resting on the ground and the evergreen trees.  A few tiny snow flurries land on my coat and amaze me with their intricacies, but the storm has been over for several hours.

I spotted one set of fresh deer tracks and one place where a squirrel had been scratching for acorns in the snow on my way to the creek, but this is undoubtedly a day when most critters are yet bracing themselves for an adventure in the new fallen snow.

Three partridges take flight as I frighten them from nearby spruce trees while I make my way back home toward the cabin.  I look forward to the day when I can capture an elusive partridge on camera.

Bits of blue sky reveal themselves above the thin layer of gray December clouds.  If all goes as planned, there will be a beautiful sunset this evening, at least that's my plan... and I'll be ready for it.

 Although the whole sky didn't light up, I wasn't disappointed this evening with the sunset, a nice way to end a winter's day!

Happy New Year Everyone!

DECEMBER SURPRISE!

I spent a good deal of time today reflecting on the passing of a friend, Angel Gnau, from Portland, Oregon, who lost her battle with cancer yesterday.  She was my mentor for three years since my own cancer diagnosis.  I was sent her way by a group that she volunteered with called "Breast Friends", based in Oregon, through my local clinic here in Wisconsin.

Angel was a nine year survivor of ovarian cancer.  I never met her in person, but we corresponded with email and she was always upbeat and ready to answer my questions and give me tips on how to cope.  You never would have known how she was suffering if you didn't ask her, as she never complained and was always full of hope.

On my way home from a walk down the road this morning, after watching the water trickle through the culverts, I was thinking how empty the world seemed, no squirrels, no deer, no birds singing or in flight.  It seemed too quiet, but I guess that's the way it is in December in Wisconsin. 

This year with the mild temperatures and lack of snowfall it's a little different though, and if you really open your eyes you might be surprised at what you see.  Just after feeling overwhelmed with emptiness on my walk, I spotted a robin in a neighbor's yard!  It was the first time I have ever seen a robin here in December.  I suppose this poor bird never migrated, but then again we can imagine that it did, and since it has now returned, winter is just about over.  How fun is that!

After taking a few photos of the lone robin, I spotted a banded woolly bear caterpillar crawling down the road not far from my driveway.  I picked it up carefully, watching it coil up in the palm of my hand, and placed it in the road ditch so it wouldn't get run over.

Seeing the robin, just five days before Christmas, gave me new hope.  Although December can be a quiet time, this year it is different than any I remember.  I am thankful for the chance to observe the little things in nature around me this month, and I'm thankful that I had the chance to know Angel.  She not only helped me in my struggles with cancer, but so many others as well, and I won't forget her, or the December robin.

Indian Fall in December

I asked for ideas on my Facebook page the other day on what to call the mild weather we are having in Wisconsin this December.  It's been milder than I can ever remember this late in the year.

Earlier in the fall, after a hard frost, when nice weather comes upon us for a brief visit once again, we call it Indian Summer.  It's surely too late for that now, and although fall hasn't officially ended, for the most part it would have been long gone by now here where I live.  This resurgence of mild weather, the kind that makes you feel good in spirits, needs another name as it is also certainly too early for spring fever.  Eric, our friend and neighbor, was the winner when he suggested calling this weather, Indian Fall.  I feel as if we've had a second chance at fall this year for sure.


Our pond is once again completely open, we had thunderstorms last night, and the grass is green;  it's been such odd weather for mid December in Central Wisconsin.  I keep looking for a blooming May Flower in my yard, but I haven't found one quite yet!

Today I thought it would be nice to take a road trip and visit a river somewhere so we headed to Black River Falls.  We stopped at the Bruce Cormican Memorial Canoe Landing on the south edge of town and walked along the Black River for a spell between the rain drops.  The first site my hubby and I encountered when we walked down to the river was a man extending his landing net at the shore to retrieve a walleye, just border line legal at 15".  He released it, but he was smiling.  We asked if he'd ever remembered fishing open water this late in the season and of course he said no, but the weather was just what prompted him to come here and fish today.

I noticed so many green plants along the river bank and kept my eye out for blooming wild flowers but I didn't find any.  Some tree branches had buds that were slightly swelled.


We also ventured over to Perry Creek to a county park that bares its name just south of town.  There is a swinging footbridge there that leads to a waterfall along the beautiful Perry Creek near where it runs into the Black River.   The creek bank is dotted with large white and red pines and river birch.

The rain held off long enough for us to get a short walk in and enjoy the greenery along Perry Creek.  Ferns and moss on the logs and rocky outcroppings along the river were just what I needed to see.  The damp misty cool air reminded me of a trip I took to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State a few years ago in the month of February.  There were not many tourists out and about at that time of the year, but oh was it green and beautiful there!

I don't know if we'll ever see another December like this one in 2015, but it's been grand.  The rain and the cloudy days don't bother me as long as the temps are mild.  Winter will be so much shorter this year, thanks to our Indian Fall!

Me looking for rocks at Perry Creek

CALM BEFORE THE STORM

A gloomy and cloudy, gray morning is upon me today.  It feels like the calm before the storm.  As I step outside the cabin door the sulfury smell of the paper mill, thirty some odd miles to the east of us, permeates the air.  That's the way it's been all my life.  My Grandfather, who lived a mile south of me as the crow flies, always said in the 1960s, "I can smell the paper mill.  It's going to storm."

I hastily walk around the pond dike, dipping into the thick woods near the creek and nestle up against a big oak tree.

All around me are signs of those who were here before me, just days or weeks ago.  I notice two small maple trees rubbed by a buck's antlers and a large scrape on the ground not far away.  The regular whitetail gun deer season ended yesterday and the woods is quiet as it waits for the impending storm to arrive.

A few raindrops land on my journal...  and then stop, as if beckoning me to write faster.  I can occasionally hear in the distance the three birds that seem to follow me this time of year in our Wisconsin woods; crows, chickadees, and blue jays.  None of them are in sight.

I'm likening the weather today to my own mood.  I've just finished six months of chemotherapy, my second round of treatments.  Now I sit and wait... for a recurrence that will most likely come quicker than the last one.  I'm facing reality and my own "calm before the storm".

It's difficult trying to sort out the best way to cope and enjoy this time I've been given to the fullest.  Should I spend it gathering up firewood and stacking it up before the snow falls, or stashing acorns in every hollow tree like the squirrels, or maybe flying south like the trumpeter swans to avoid winter's snow and cold.

My breath is visible as the wind begins to pick up a little, but the rain and ice are waiting for me to finish writing in my journal.

I think I'll not worry about gathering firewood, stashing acorns, or getting rained on.  I believe I'll just keep sitting under this oak tree and allow myself to get soaked... and enjoy every minute of it!  It's just rain, on the last day of November in Wisconsin, and it's both frightening and exhilarating.

p.s.  I'm not saying Grandpa was wrong, but the rain never did come this morning!

FIVE THINGS

5 THINGS

If I could only choose five things in nature to heighten my senses…

Just five little things to keep me sane,

It’d be easy for me to decide.

I’d pick wild roses to smell...

Wintergreen berries to taste...

 Trumpeter swans to hear...

Cardinal flowers to see...

And pussy willows to touch...

What five things would you choose?

NOVEMBER MOON

It's cold out today, the second day of the whitetail gun deer season in Wisconsin.  This morning when I woke up and looked out my window, the ground was coated with powdered sugar.  Most of the snow has disappeared this afternoon though, except for a coating of white on the pond's new ice.

We've went from fall to winter, from dragonflies to snow flakes, in just a few short days.  It always seems like winter begins here where I live during the week of Thanksgiving. When it comes suddenly like this year, it takes us time to acclimate.

It's calm in the woods right now and I'm enjoying the peacefulness of the day's end as the sun sets beyond the gray, cold, clouds of a soon to come winter.

What lies in front of me as I sit near my brother's tree stand, hoping a deer will come my way, are fallen oak leaves, golden marsh grass, everything in shades of grays and browns.  The tamarack's golden needles and red, orange, and yellow leaves from the oaks, aspen, birch, and maples have since fallen and turned to brown.

I'm not hunting again this year, and sometimes I do miss it.  As I sit here in my blaze orange coat leaning up against a big oak tree, I hear a few distant gun shots to the east and the west, but nothing close by.   I hope everyone has had a safe and fun season so far.

It's time to walk back to the cabin now as the sun has set and darkness is closing in.  But wait, here's the moon!  As I catch a glimpse of it rising through the treetops above the pond, it brings me hope.  Staring at the moon's bright and fuzzy glow, I see a framework around it consisting of  tiny buds on the tamarack branches and catkins on the aspen trees, all sure signs that spring is around the corner... just waiting to come back again!  And boy howdy, I can't wait! 

CROWS, SPIDERS, & LIGHTNING

As I step outside on this beautiful Sunday morning the blue sky is full of crows trying to chase away an owl.  I follow them around the pond and into the woods where the owl honkers down in the middle of a large white pine tree.  He's hoping the crows will stop harassing him, but no luck.  Before I can locate the owl he flies up and crosses the creek with the flock of crows gathered all around him cawing loudly.  I continue to hear them cackling in the distance as the owl finds another perching tree.  How long will it be until the crows quit playing their game?  Who knows.

I find my way to the mouth of the little Lindsay Creek and sit by an oak tree to write in my journal.  It's almost shirt sleeve weather and I can't believe how many "gift days" we have had this fall.  Two spiders chase each other across my leg but I'm not going to kill them.  They're so little they don't scare me, and besides, my mom said if you kill a spider it'll rain.

I can see Joe-pye weed plants just across the creek standing tall amid the marsh grass.  Their beautiful pink blossoms of summer are only a memory.

 

 

A sturdy little white pine tree stands in front of me and looks full of promise.  It picked a great place to live, right next to the creek in full sunlight.  Some day it will fear lightning when it towers over the other trees, but not for many years to come.




In two more days I'll finish my last chemotherapy treatment if all goes as planned.  It's been a long six month stretch this time.  What's next?  Who knows.  Today... who cares.  There aren't any crows chasing me, the spiders came and went, and a lightning strike is next to impossible!  I'm going to celebrate on this beautiful Sunday by soaking up the sun and looking for red dragonflies. 


 

I found them!

"Take me away from the solitude of nature and I will die swiftly.  

Give me a woods to walk in, a creek to cross, and the sound of birds singing... and I will live forever."

FOR THE LOVE OF ROCKS

My post this week is a bit behind, and also a little off the wall, but I hope you enjoy it.

I'm a little bit of a rock hound and love looking for agates in particular, and other rocks that are just plain pretty, or have fossils in them or something cool.  Wisconsin, or least the area where I live, does not have many fossils.  Sometimes we have to be creative when we find a rock that catches our eye in these parts.  When I'm out exploring nature wherever I might be,  I tend to pause and study rocks at my feet as well.  It's a habit that started when I was very young, inherited from my father's side of the fence.

Here's a story that came to me the other night, while I couldn't sleep, thinking about the rock with the face on it that I found the other day at home.  This rock is just a little smaller than a golf ball. 

"A Native American Lady, "dubbed with affection by her tribe as, "Woman Who Wastes Time Looking", was gathering clams one late summer day nearly seven hundred years ago, in a small stream not far from her abode, when she found a rock in the ripples of a shallow place with the sun shining upon it. As she placed the rock in her hand, noticing what she thought was an aged face, wrinkled from the sun, she heard a story in her head. The story follows...

Many years ago you may recall hearing about the time in late summer when your great grandmother, "Lightfoot", left your camp to look for the delicious sweet tooth mushrooms everyone prized as an ingredient to her soups and partridge stews. She had found the apricot colored mushrooms before, in a special place on an oak knoll, but this time, Lightfoot, on her journey alone, never returned home.

"Woman Who Wastes Time" gazed at the stone clutched in her palm and the story came to her about the woman she barely remembered, as she was just a young child when this happened. When Grandmother spoke to her, inside her head, in an aged but somewhat familiar voice, she said, "Never stop looking for small treasures from Mother Earth that delight you, no matter what others say... like small pebbles from the earth, feathers from the sky, shed antlers from the deer, and little things that no one else takes time to see." "When I left you, my journey was not wasted, I found the sweet tooth. My feet wouldn't let me make it back home, but my mind and heart are always with you."

SUNSET WHITETAIL

It's sunset, and I'm sitting on the ground on my old tree stand between two oak trees.  Gray squirrels are cackling, one directly above me and another southeast of me.  The woods is quiet and calm, and the temperature on this first day of November is quite mild!

I was planning to walk across the crick this afternoon but I couldn't cross it with my Merrell hikers that I'm wearing.  We received close to three inches of rain in the last few days, and the water level has risen a bit.  I forgot that little detail.

I've got my camera in hand, focusing on the jabbering squirrel in the red oak tree right above me.  It seems as though his noise making will give my presence away to the entire world.  Dang!

 
But after snapping a few pictures of the squirrel I hear a commotion to my left.  A whitetail buck is walking directly towards me and he's extremely curious.  He steps closer and closer while I keep trying to capture a photo of him that isn't blurry.

Then he stops about 60' from me and slowly trots away after realizing that I wasn't the doe he was looking for.  This buck is clearly in the rutt to have his guard down so much.

Just a couple minutes later an owl lands in an oak tree nearby.  It's hard to write in my journal with so much action going on this evening.  The owl escapes me as I frighten him with my quick motions, setting down my journal and pen and turning my camera back on.  It is neat to see his large wingspan as he takes back off in flight and soars through the oak trees toward the pond.

Moths are fluttering around me also.  They are elusive but I see one now perched on a maple tree just across the trail from where I'm sitting.  With a flash, I'll try to capture it later when I get up to leave.

The sun has completely set now and darkness is settling in all around me.  Will I make it back to the cabin without a flashlight?  For sure.  Do I want to?  Maybe, but I'm in no hurry.  Who's afraid of the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf, tra la la la la?  Not me!

What a glorious beginning to the month of November in Wisconsin.  I think Indian Summer is just around the corner.  Don't let it pass you by! Go take a walk and enjoy it.

TRUMPETERS & TAMARACKS

This weekend I'm reflecting on a year of memories with my friend, Rosie, and so many others involved in efforts to restore Sherwood Lake in southeastern Clark County.  A dam failure at this favorite local spot back in February of 2014, has left the lake high and dry.  We've been busy fundraising to get the lake restored since last October when we started up a group called Friends of Sherwood Lake.

The golden tamarack needles and rust colored oak leaves are reflecting on the surface of our pond today too, with help from a clear blue sky, bright sunshine, and no wind worth mentioning.

Earlier this week, I was sitting out by the pond in late afternoon when I heard a distant trumpet call, high up in the southeastern sky.  It was a welcome sound, one I don't hear often, but one that lights up my world.  It didn't take long until I spotted six trumpeter swans heading my way and watched them continue flying overhead toward the northwest, passing our place by.

I like to challenge nature so I shouted out loud, "Hey, you guys, come back!"  Abruptly, and to my shear amazement, the swans quickly turned around and landed near the bistro bench, where I'm sitting today writing in my journal.  There were two adults and four young swans in the group and they kept their distance, swimming back and forth along the far edge of the pond.  Thankfully, I was able to walk back to the cabin, grab my camera, and take a few pictures before they left.

Three days later, I drove out to Sherwood Lake for some needed therapy.  After spending time walking along the edge of the dry lake bed, I pulled up by the fundraising sign and parked my car.  Our group's efforts are nearly over and I wanted to update the meter.

It was about 1:30 p.m. when I finished marking up the large plywood sign posted at the lake's entrance, and I began hearing trumpet calls to the north.  Looking into the sky overhead, I saw six trumpeter swans, two adults and four young ones, flying high above me.  I grabbed my camera from my pocket and snapped a few pix as I watched them slowly glide down and settle in to the far west end of the marshy lake bed.  Then all was quiet and peaceful.  I felt as if the swans, perhaps the same ones who visited our pond the other day, were giving me a sign, and letting me know that everything is going to be o.k.

 

Plans are now underway to dredge the lake this winter and repair the dam next summer.  It's been a grand year of memories, and thanks to the hard work of so many people, it won't be long until the swans have their water back at Sherwood Lake.

GIFT DAYS

It's just a beautiful fall afternoon to rest out on the back twenty.  Light breezes are blowing and the sun will set in a short while.  I'm quietly sitting, observing, and listening.

Nothing special is happening... but now I hear the crackling of the leaves and a doe walking near me.  I try to get a photo and she bolts with her white tail high in the air and runs back from the way she came.  A young deer is with her but stays.  It walks in a nearly complete circle around me, just curious, and then slowly fades away into the woods behind me.  I take a few quick shots of the young deer with my camera.

Perhaps this is three legged deer's spring fawn.

This sun is setting now and the forest is quiet.  The curled up, dried ferns scattered all around me, even though no longer green and alive, are still pretty.  Last night was the coldest night so far this fall with temperatures in the low 20's.

The smell of the leaves and pine needles at my feet help make the atmosphere in my woods just right.
I can still hear deer walking slowly in the distance and squirrels scampering about.  The dry and crisp freshly fallen leaves make it hard for them to move about without making sounds.

Today is one of those "gift days" of autumn.  Grandpa said days such as this one are are "gifts" because they allow one to get all the necessary things done before winter comes.  I'd like to sit out here until it's pitch dark and I can hardly find my way back to the cabin.  Today would be a grand day to stop the clock, so it would never end.

In the distance, sandhill cranes are calling to one another.  They are gathering together and getting ready to fly south soon.  It's a gift day for them too.